#feature prioritization

When it comes to product development, prioritization is your secret weapon. Imagine having a roadmap that leads to efficiency, value delivery, and staying ahead of the curve. Buckle up, because we’re about to dive into the art of feature prioritization, tailored just for you. Why Should You Read This?Revisit Your Strategic GoalsData, Data, DataStart with an MVPResource Reality Check Why Should…

A prioritization of features is necessary because we have limited time, money, and people. Prioritizing also helps to avoid “feature-itis”. Without any restraints, a project would basically become a chaotic mess. People get stressed and anxious when a product is needlessly complex. That’s the opposite of what we, as designers, should be trying to accomplish! Also, conducting user tests on a product with too many features is also more difficult because it’s harder to determine what is working and what isn’t. 

It’s a challenge to decipher which features are the most important because everything feels important! So how do you do it? Start off with understanding various goals including business goals (what’s the KPI?) and user goals (what’s the most important use case of the primary persona?). Then, ask yourself what is the simplest way to satisfy the business need and the user need. Create an affinity map of essential vs non-essential features and low effort/cost vs. high effort/cost and start with the most essential/lowest effort/cost feature(s). 

Be able to answer:

Users MUST be able to ... 

Users SHOULD be able to...

Users COULD be able to...

Users WON’T be able to...

Start with features that fall into these categories from top to bottom:

Must have

Should have

Could have

To prioritize features, start with answering the following question: