Product Backlog Prioritisation for Developers – Part 2

Moscow prioritization

In MoSCoW method, the name stands for ‘M’ as MUST, ‘S’ as SHOULD, ‘C’ as COULD and ‘W’ as WON’T. These categories are ordered from highest to lowest priority. All the features in the backlog are grouped under these categories. ‘MUST’ features are those that are critical to the product development. If not implemented, the release will fail. ‘SHOULD’ features are good to have them in the product but not as important as the first group. ‘COULD’ features could be included in the product but are not necessary. They are mostly small enhancement to the product not directly required by the customer. ‘WON’T’ features are low priority items that need to be revised in the next planning session and will not be included in the current release. As this method is based on the interpretation of the importance, it is a qualitative approach and more suited for small projects rather than large projects involving many customers.

Paired comparison prioritisation

In Paired-comparison method, a list of user stories is provided. Each user story is compared pairwise with the other user stories in the list. At each step, it is decided which one is more important in the pair. The more important item is scheduled ahead of the lower importance item. This pairwise comparison is done for all the user stories in the backlog.

100 point method prioritisation

In 100-points method, each stakeholder is given a budget of 100 points to distribute among the backlog items. Any stakeholder gives more points to an item which they think is more important. The stakeholders can give different points to a specific item. The final value of the item is calculated by summing up the points given by different stakeholders. Based on this metric, the items are ordered and the highest value ones are implemented first. It is called cumulative voting as well as the votes from different stakeholders are accumulated to find the final value of the item.

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