The-Product-Space

Prioritisation – the dreaded thing every Product person has to deal with in their daily decisions. Numerous articles , blogs, reading materials are available across the product management community which could help, guide and teach the methods for making prioritisation decisions. However, in practical world do you sit down to calculate the RICE score when asked this bug should be fixed for the launch, this feature should go ahead OR do you make an impact vs effort matrix to decide on which change should go first. While these assist in helping us with building a mindset or understand why prioritisation is important and there could be ways to prioritise – In practical world there need to be pragmatic , immediate decisions when product people are put in a similar situation.

SO – how to prioritise ?

Prioritisation is simple - you just have to learn to say the world “NO”. I know it takes some practice . But we all understand how much this word helps both in professional and personal life 🙂

Now to learn to say we need to understand when to say NO – which again – would help in prioritisation – as below –

1. SAY NO WHEN “the feature does NOT align with Product vision or stategy.” – SAY NO by saying we can visit in the next planning cycle
2. SAY NO WHEN “the feature does not resonate with your Roadmap based on impact and feasibility – SAY NO by saying we need to focus on existing priorities – lets table this and revisit it in the next planning cycle
3. SAY NO WHEN “there is no data backing the decision ” – SAY the impact is very less with few percentage of users affected by this. Let’s focus on areas of higher impact”
4. SAY NO WHEN “the feature could delay your existing priority” – SAY NO to a stakeholder by educating them about the priorities and ask if a simplified version can be analysed

Most importantly the product like a NORTH STAR should have a NORTH STAR for a “NO”. Like “NO” for features which increases number of clicks, clutter user experience, are not backed by data, generic offerings etc.

Finally, try to analyse the feature or request and say NO based on the above but also try to see if alternate solutions with similar or better OUTCOMES are available and can be applied.

Hope it helps.

School, P. (2023, November 24). PM School on LinkedIn: Saying “NO“ as a Product Manager! | 13 comments. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pmschoolx_saying-no-as-a-product-manager-activity-7133801466145779713-0CBY/