Backlog prioritization for product managers Customers, sales, support and the CEO all have a list.
Every one of them is right about something, and every one of them is asking for a feature. The backlog grows by request and shrinks by whoever pushed hardest last week. A RICE sheet does not fix it, because the numbers in the sheet are yours.
Stakeholders rate what the product needs to do
Customer segments, sales, support and leadership become stakeholders with explicit weights, by revenue, by strategy, by whatever you can defend. They rate needs, not features: faster checkout, fewer support contacts, enterprise readiness. Sales stops arguing for one deal's feature when the model shows what it costs everyone else.
Coverage is your judgment, separate from the votes
You decide how much each feature delivers each need. That is the product call, and it stays a product call, but it is written down next to the votes so anyone can see where a ranking came from.
Any new request lands in the ranking the same day
Rate a new request's coverage and it has a priority, a place in the roadmap and a line in the report before the next meeting. Prioritization stops being a quarterly event and becomes a standing answer.
- Customer segments as stakeholders, weighted and voting from a private link
- A value against effort view with a flag wherever stakeholders disagree
- A decision report you can share with the people who asked
Your nouns: needs and features, the default.
Related
Rank the backlog on what it delivers.
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