MoSCoW Prioritization Method-A Simple Guide

The Moscow Prioritization method can help you and your product team decide what you need to focus on for your project. If you’ve got multiple key stakeholders lobbying for various features, having a way to score them can help determine which product features to focus on first.

What is the MoSCoW Prioritization Method?

Dai Clegg created the MoSCoW prioritization method while working at Oracle to help his team prioritize project requirements.

The idea is that the team must focus on high-priority requirements to ensure they’re planned into your product before moving on to other options. 

You can apply this prioritization framework to requirements, user stories, products, or even tasks.

This popular prioritization technique can also help you identify which projects need more attention than others so that you don’t waste valuable resources. And the product manager, stakeholders, and the team will have a common understanding of what’s most important. And it can provide structure for discussions between the business and development teams.

Prioritization Categories

The MoSCoW Prioritization Method is made up of four prioritization categories. The process name of MoSCoW represents each of these four priority levels.

Must Have

  • These are the most important things that have to get done right now. They’re usually high-priority items or key features. They could cause problems if not addressed immediately. Items in the “must-have category“ also provide the highest business benefits and impact on delivery success. For this reason, these requirements need to be considered for your first product release. Examples include fixing broken windows, replacing missing parts, making repairs, etc. For software development, ask if not having these features will impact the user experience.
  • Some questions to ask:
    • What is absolutely necessary for this project to be successful?
    • If we remove this feature, would the product provide the same value and meet the same intent?
    • Will the product still work if you don’t include this feature?
    • Will the product or service be successful without this item?
    • Is there another way to accomplish the same thing without including this requirement?

Should Have

  • These are less urgent but still very important activities. They can add value and make the product more appealing and successful. But you could still launch your product without them. Do them sooner rather than later because they’ll have value down the road. For example, installing new insulation would reduce energy bills.
  • Some questions to ask: 
    • How would the product work if the team omitted this requirement?
    • Is this something we want to include, but we could roll the product out without it if absolutely necessary?

Could Have

  • These are lower priority items. These aren’t as critical as “Must Have” or the “Should Have” items. You might think of these as “Nice to have” items. The time frame for doing these can be further out in future releases, if at all. These are the first items to be pushed to later or cut completely if there isn’t enough time to complete the “must-have” and “should-have” items.
  • Some questions to ask:
    • What would be a helpful feature to add later?
    • What would benefit the product that we don’t need to include at this time?
    • Is this feature something that we can put off until later and still have a successful product?

Won’t Have

  • These are nonessential features or tasks that won’t affect anything else. There’s no reason these shouldn’t wait until later when the team has taken care of everything else. Or the team may decide to not do them at all.

How To Use Moscow Prioritization

It’s important to understand the product vision, delivery timescale, stakeholder expectations, key benefits you want to prioritize. 

When carrying out the prioritization exercise, include different representatives from different stakeholder groups (users, developers, etc.) for best results. The project team must consider the business goals and the technical requirements in the prioritization factors.

Steps to Use MoSCoW Prioritization Method

To use this method effectively, there are some key steps to follow.

1) Define the objectives and project scope. Your team and stakeholders need to agree on the project objectives and what’s being worked on.

2) Identify the stakeholders. Who needs to be included in the voting and/or see these results? If they’re not involved in voting, will they provide feedback? Can they influence decisions made during development?

3) Decide how you’ll handle disagreements in prioritization before ranking requirements. Decide how you’ll approach disagreements before you vote to keep the process objective and moving along as smoothly as possible.

4) Set up milestones. When does the project end? Where do we want to get at the end of the project? Will the team roll out the entire project at once or have multiple phases or iterations?

5) Establish acceptance criteria. What does success look like when everything has been finished? Does everyone agree on what “success” means?

6) Create a list of items. List out all features or requirements that need to be included as part of the project. 

7) Rank them based on importance. Now comes the fun part where you rank things from most important to least important. You may need to re-rank certain items if you realize that something else is more critical than originally thought.

7) Assign resources. Focus resources on your most important work. These resources can be time, effort, team members, and/or budget. 

9) Present the findings. Present the results to stakeholders. They’ll probably ask questions such as “Why did I come last? Why didn’t my ideas win?” Explain why you chose the items that were given higher rankings.

10) Adjust accordingly. Based on the responses you receive, adjust your next round of planning. Maybe you found that your initial assumptions weren’t correct. Or perhaps you realized you underestimated the amount of effort required to complete a particular task. Either way, now you know better. So take those lessons learned and apply them to future projects.

11) Repeat until satisfied. Keep repeating the prioritization process until you feel confident enough to move forward. It might seem tedious, but it really isn’t. In fact, once you become familiar with the process, it becomes easier and faster to plan new projects.

Why Set Priorities with the MoSCoW Technique?

Priority setting can be one of the hardest parts of managing software projects. There are many factors to consider: time constraints, budget limitations, scope creep, etc. But the MoSCoW prioritization method can help the team more objectively decide what to focus on first.

You won’t need to stress because you’ll have a clear idea of what needs to be accomplished. You’ll be aligned with your team and stakeholders. And you’ll save time making decisions on how to deliver the most business value in your projects.

You’ll know what to focus on first, and what can move to a later release.

And if multiple stakeholders lobby for different features from the product development team, it provides a structured approach to prioritization.

The product team can focus on the most important features first, or prioritize the most critical project requirements.

When Do You Use the MoSCoW Method for Prioritization?

There are multiple ways you can use the MoSCoW prioritization method. You can use it with both waterfall and agile projects. Project Managers can prioritize projects or project requirements or product features. In agile project management, the product manager and product owner can determine which features make it into the product backlog.

You’ll know what to focus on first, and what can move to a later release.

You can even consider work at the task level when trying to decide how to prioritize your own work.

And if multiple stakeholders lobby for different features from the product development team, it provides a structured approach to prioritization.

The team can also determine which requirements are most critical for the minimum viable product, and prioritize those among the backlog items.

The product team can focus on the most important features first, or prioritize the most critical project requirements. The team can then determine which requirements are most critical for the minimum viable product and prioritize those among the backlog items if you’re using Agile.

You can even consider work at the task level when trying to decide how to prioritize your own work.

Summary

The MoSCoW prioritization method is an excellent tool to help prioritize features and requirements. Use it with your team to prioritize from most-to-least critical requirements. It can help determine how to prioritize features for project delivery or organize your product roadmap. It helps facilitate understanding with stakeholders, customers, and the project team, and it’s one more tool to help ensure project success.

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