15
Ranking priorities
KEY LEARNING POINT
Learn simple ways to establish the importance and order of jobs that need to be done.
The agile methodology works in such a way that priorities are established by analysing the estimations of size, difficulty, value and their importance in reaching goals.
Often there is more work than resources and budget available, so decisions need to be made on what proportion of the work can be completed and what work can be discarded or parked for later activities when time and resources allow.
To help develop and prioritise actions that have been mapped, we can use the user stories and estimations to help establish the importance and priority of the action.
- Does the activity take you closer to your goal?
- Does this activity provide a vital validation/learning opportunity?
- Is the activity urgent?
- How important is this activity?
- Does the activity create value?
When we are in a state of extreme change, our priorities may need to be refactored continuously to take account of constantly moving goals or requirements. Working in short sprints, and using reflection and learning to provide feedback, we can re-prioritise and action the most important and urgent tasks required in the ‘next time’ box of activity.
If the activity is not taking you closer to your goal, providing useful information or is considered urgent or important, the value of the activity should be questioned and a decision made about whether the activity needs to be done at all.
MoSCoW
Adapted from a model developed by Dai Clegg, MoSCoW is an acronym used to help rank the importance of tasks and activities. Use this to prompt activities that you must, should, could or would like to do in the future.
- Must have is an essential task, feature or activity that is vital for the project to be successful. It may not be urgent or a priority, but it is important.
- Should have is a necessary item that the project should include in order to provide a satisfactory solution.
- Could haves are items that the project could include and may add value. They are optional items.
- Would like to haves are desirable features that are seen as adding value but are not vital. These might be new ideas that could be very innovative or game changers, and so should be given time for discussion and priority, if desired.
By ranking each activity as a must, should, could or would like to have, provides information on importance and so informs the decision-making progress on what should be delivered early and, potentially, what can wait until later. By establishing the highest priority and value items, this can help to identify the order of development.
There should be a balance of activities within the project: too many must haves can increase the risk of the project, as it increases the amount of complexity and number of dependencies, making for an over-complicated solution. Equally, too many would like to haves could flag that there is a large amount of new untested work that has not been tried before. This work would require additional validation and learning in order to develop a viable solution, so additional resources and slack to allow for change would need to be built into the scope.
An example of an important must have that is not urgent, is a simple invoice; it is an essential component of delivering work but, generally, is not issued until work is complete in the later stages of the pipeline of delivery.
The ‘W’ can also be defined as ‘won’t have’ when work needs to be cut down.
Value provided
To help establish the priority of activities and refine the work to be done, each activity can be ranked to identify the value it will deliver against the earlier identified goals and objectives. For example, is the goal to be faster, better or cheaper than before?
Ranking each activity against the measures of value and success can help to establish whether the size of the activity is in line with the value it will deliver. At the extreme, if the activity is seen to deliver a high return with little action required, then this would be of the highest value. Large activities that do not contribute to the goals and objectives would be ranked as low. The value of the activity in relation to goals and objectives will help to inform prioritising and planning decisions.
Visualising priorities
To help see the ranking and estimations, notes can be structured to capture a short description of the job/activity, its estimated size, importance and value. A simple approach is to put one in each corner of a job/activity card (see Figure 15.1). You can differentiate types of activities by using different coloured notes or labelling with a category or type.
Visual notes for jobs are useful to provide a high-level overview of that job. The description of the activity and the information on the note are short and concise and acts as a reminder and memory trigger when reviewing and planning.
Figure 15.1 Example of a job/activity card
Important/urgent matrix
When activities have been defined and estimated, this provides the additional information needed to be able to rank and batch them into the order in which they need to be actioned. The important/urgent matrix (see Figure 15.2) is a simple tool to help prioritise work, developed by Stephen Covey. Mapping the tasks onto the grid can help to define what might be included in early work and, as time progresses, what can be actioned later and what elements are optional.
By estimating and ranking requirements and by combining metrics of size, value and importance, we can begin to rationalise expectations into a viable way forward to provide a solution that meets needs within the scope and constraints of a project.
