Most product teams claim to use well-defined frameworks for feature prioritization.
The reality though, is that many product teams use one of these “alternative” frameworks.
1. The “squeaky wheel” framework: whatever customer asks the loudest and most often gets their requested feature built next.
2. The “whatever’s easiest” framework: You choose the backlog item you can build with the least effort. At least it keeps the changelog growing!
3. The “HiPPO” framework: You carefully evaluate the feature request backlogs, put them in a logical order – and then the boss/founder/CEO (aka the HiPPO or “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion”) overrides it and dictates what you actually will work on.
4. The “follow the hype” framework: You ignore the backlog of highly requested items, because there’s a hype train to jump on!
5. The “dartboard” framework: Evaluating the options requires too much effort, so you simply pick something at random. This one is often combined with the “HiPPO” framework.
6. The “trust me, I understand our users” framework: As the person in charge you are certain you know what users think and what users want – with no evidence of course! You simply dictate what the product team works on next.
7. The “chase our competitors” framework: Listen to customers? Not us, we do whatever our competitors recently added to their feature list – assuming that, unlike us, they’ve done their customer research.
8. The “feed the whale” framework: whatever your biggest customer asks for is what you do next and it better be ASAP, because your company is in constant fear of them churning.
Naturally I don’t recommend any of these!
But I suspect they are used more often than we’d admit…
If you’re ready to stop using any of these frameworks, and start being more methodical in how you decide what to build next, here’s a good first step:
Start using Feature Upvote. Let your customers openly suggest and upvote feature requests, and find out which ideas are the popular ones.