Reprioritize Your Priorities

Re-Stack ranking your priorities

Insight from Rameel Sheikh

Being picky on what projects to work on during the quarter is all about focusing on what matters.

Having too many things on the roadmap can make things confusing. It's like when your desk is messy and you can't find your homework.

If we try to do everything and chase after all the new, shiny ideas, we lose track of what we need to do in the first place.

Focusing on what customers actually need and what bugs them is key.

However, projects and feature requests in the quarter force you to reprioritize your list. What do you then?

Stack ranking emerges as a critical tool for determining what top initiatives to work on. This technique involves ordering potential features, projects, or initiatives based on their impact.

Here’s how you can install stack ranking in your roadmap planning process:

• What's the Goal: Establish clear, objective criteria for evaluating features. We gotta ask, "Will this help us grow? Do people stick around more? Does it fit with what we're all about?"

• Team Huddle: Get everyone working on the project to throw in their two cents. This way, we ensure we're not missing out on ideas or forgetting what our users want.

• Ranking Session: Each feature or project is evaluated against the defined goals during a ranking session. This can be done through scoring, voting, or discussion until a consensus is reached on priority.

Be sure to limit the number of projects you can have. You must bump a project off the list if you agree to 10 in the quarter.

By stack ranking this way, we keep our eyes on the prize and ensure we do what matters.