How to Prioritize Features Like a Pro: A Beginner’s Guide for New PMs

Build what matters most – learn proven methods to rank features so you deliver maximum value without the headaches.

One of the toughest challenges for a new product manager is deciding what to build first (and what to save for later). With endless feature ideas, requests from stakeholders, and user feedback, how do you choose what’s most important? Prioritization is the answer. In this guide, we’ll cover the basics of feature prioritization: why it’s crucial, how to evaluate what should come first, some popular frameworks to help make decisions, and tips to prioritize effectively. By the end, you’ll know how to tackle your to-do list like a pro, ensuring your team’s effort goes into the features that matter most.

Why Prioritization Matters

Infinite Ideas, Finite Resources

Every product manager quickly learns that there are always more ideas than the team can execute. You might have a long wishlist of features, improvements, and cool innovations – not to mention input from bosses, customers, and teammates. However, time, budget, and team bandwidth are limited resources. If you try to do everything, you’ll likely end up stretching your team too thin and delivering a poor result. That’s why prioritization is key: it forces you to make conscious choices about where to focus. By acknowledging that you *can’t do it all at once*, you empower yourself to do what matters most really well. For example, if your app has 10 possible new features to add but only capacity to build 2 this quarter, prioritization will help you pick the 2 that will make the biggest impact.

Impact of Good Prioritization

When you prioritize effectively, you ensure that the team’s effort is aligned with the product’s goals and user needs. Good prioritization means the most valuable features (to users and the business) get delivered first. This can lead to quick wins – maybe a new feature that immediately boosts customer satisfaction or a fix that stops users from dropping out of the signup process. It also prevents wasting time on low-impact work. Without prioritization, you might spend months on a feature that sounded nice but doesn’t really change the product’s success. With a prioritized approach, you could instead deliver something in that same time that significantly improves metrics like engagement or revenue. In short, prioritization maximizes the return on the team’s efforts and can be the difference between a product that lags and one that leaps ahead.

Key Factors in Prioritization

Value to Users and Business

The first question to ask about any proposed feature or task is: How much value will this bring? There are two sides to value – user value and business value – and often the best priorities satisfy both. User value means the feature solves an important problem or fulfills a big need for your customers. Business value could be things like increasing revenue, reducing costs, or helping you compete in the market. For example, adding a search function to an app might have high user value (helps users find what they need easily) and high business value (users find more products, leading to more sales). When evaluating ideas, try to estimate the impact. Will this feature delight a lot of users or just a few? Is it critical for keeping customers or just a nice-to-have? Features that score high on value should usually move up your priority list.

Effort and Resources Required

The other side of the coin is how much effort a feature will take to build and implement. Two ideas might both be valuable, but one could take one week to build and the other six months. A common prioritization approach is to weigh the value (benefit) against the effort (cost). Quick, low-effort tasks that have decent value are often great to do first – these are sometimes called "low-hanging fruit" or quick wins. On the flip side, a very valuable feature that takes a massive effort might be something you plan for in the long term while you tackle smaller items now. Be sure to involve your development team in estimating effort; as a new PM, you don’t have to guess alone. For instance, before prioritizing, ask engineers for a t-shirt size estimate (Small, Medium, Large) or a rough story point estimate for each item. This will help you compare items fairly. The goal isn’t to always pick the easy things, but to be aware of the trade-offs – sometimes a big effort is worth it, but you might delay or break it into smaller pieces as needed.

Popular Prioritization Frameworks

MoSCoW Method

MoSCoW is a simple way to categorize feature ideas into four buckets: - **Must Have:** Non-negotiable items that are critical to the product’s success or basic functioning. If these aren’t included, the product might not be viable or users might be extremely dissatisfied. (e.g., “The app **must have** a login functionality.”) - **Should Have:** Important items that add significant value, but the product can still function without them in the short term. (e.g., “We **should have** a password reset feature, though users can use a workaround by contacting support for now.”) - **Could Have:** Nice-to-haves or low-impact features. These have some value but are not crucial. They’re the first to drop if timelines are tight. (e.g., “We **could have** an option to customize the app theme color – some users might like it, but it’s not core.”) - **Won’t Have (this time):** Items that are out of scope for now. They might be revisited later, but for the current planning period, you commit to not doing them. (e.g., “We **won’t have** a built-in chat feature in this release.”) Using MoSCoW helps you communicate clearly with stakeholders about what’s in and out of scope. It’s especially useful during release planning – it sets the expectations that only Musts and some Shoulds will definitely be delivered, while Coulds are not promises.

RICE Scoring

RICE is a quantitative framework that stands for **Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort**. It helps you score features to compare them objectively: - **Reach:** How many users (or what percentage of users) will be affected by this feature in a given time frame? For example, a feature might affect “50% of users per month” (like a change to the home screen everyone sees) or “500 users per quarter” (if it’s for a niche scenario). - **Impact:** If the feature is delivered, how much will it move the needle for each user? This is often rated on a scale like 3 = massive impact, 2 = high, 1 = medium, 0.5 = low, 0.25 = minimal. It’s a bit subjective, but you’d give a higher impact score to a feature that significantly improves user satisfaction or conversion, vs. a minor cosmetic update. - **Confidence:** How sure are you about the reach and impact estimates? If you have data or research, confidence is high. If it’s a guess, confidence is lower. This is usually a percentage. For instance, if you’re pretty sure about your assumptions you might say 80% confidence. - **Effort:** How much work will it take? Measured in “person-months” typically (e.g., 0.5 means half a month of work for one person, 2 means two months of work for one person, or one month for a two-person team). Lower effort gets a higher score since it’s in the denominator. The RICE score is calculated as (Reach * Impact * Confidence) / Effort. You’d do this for each feature and then compare the scores. Higher scores indicate a better “bang for the buck.” This method helps reduce bias – maybe a feature you thought was crucial scores low once you factor in effort, making you reconsider. As a new PM, you don’t have to be super precise; even rough RICE scoring can illuminate priorities.

Tips for Effective Prioritization

Stay Objective and Transparent

Prioritization can become emotional – everyone has a favorite idea. To keep things smooth, anchor your decisions in objective criteria (like the frameworks above or agreed-upon goals). When communicating your decisions, explain the "why" behind them. For instance, instead of just saying "Feature X is postponed," you might explain "Feature X is a great idea, but in our analysis, Feature Y will benefit more users this quarter, and we only have resources for one of them right now." By being transparent about your reasoning, you not only justify the decision, you also build trust. Team members and stakeholders may still be disappointed if their idea isn’t chosen now, but they’ll understand the rationale. Also, be open to feedback – someone might have information that changes the priority (for example, a new sales deal that depends on a particular feature). Objectivity doesn’t mean rigidity; if the facts change, be willing to adjust priorities and explain the new reasoning.

Regularly Revisit and Re-Prioritize

Prioritization isn’t a one-and-done task; it’s an ongoing process. New data, user feedback, or changes in the market can affect what’s most important. A common mistake is setting priorities once and then sticking to them blindly for too long. Instead, build a habit of reviewing your backlog periodically (say, at the end of each sprint or every few weeks). Check if the assumptions you made still hold true. Perhaps a competitor just launched a feature similar to one of your “Could Haves” – maybe that should bump up to a “Should Have” to stay competitive. Or maybe after releasing a new update, you got feedback that users are desperate for better onboarding, suggesting that should move up the list. By regularly revisiting priorities, you ensure you’re always working on the most relevant things. It’s like course-correcting while driving – small adjustments over time to make sure you reach your destination efficiently, rather than realizing too late that you’ve taken a wrong turn. Stay agile and keep listening to what the indicators (user behavior, feedback, market conditions) tell you, and adjust your plans accordingly.