Prioritizing Your Product Backlog

© 2009 Mountain Goat Software© Copyright Mountain Goat Software®

Prioritizing Your

Product Backlog

Mike Cohn

[email protected]

June 8, 2010

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© Copyright Mountain Goat Software®

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Mike CohnFounding member and director of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance

Founder of Mountain Goat Software

Doing Scrum since 1995

Started my career as a programmer

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Combine formal & informal

Formal prioritization approaches forChoosing among projects

Choosing between “epics” or “big features”

An informal approach (expert opinion)Once you’ve selected the epics / big features

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Why?

Features that are too small cannot be effectively prioritized against each other

What’s more important in a word processor?The A key or the E key?

Tables or undo?

What’s more important on a car?The left front wheel or the right front wheel?

Increased leg room or a larger engine?

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Prioritize epics then open them up to optimize release contents

The release

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Approaches to prioritizing

Kano analysis

Expert opinion

Theme screening

Theme scoring

Relative weighting

Financial analysis

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Non-financialprioritization

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Kano analysis1

Must be present in order for users to be

Mandatory / Baseline

The more of it, the better

Linear

Features a user doesn’t know she wants, until she sees it

Exciters / Delighters

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Impact on user satisfaction

FeaturePresence

Satis

fact

ion

Low

Hig

h

Low High

Exciters/Delighters

MandatoryLinear

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Surveying users

To assess whether a feature is baseline, linear, or exciting we can:

Sometimes guess

Or survey a small set of users (20-30)

We ask two questionsA functional question

How do you feel if a feature is present?

And a dysfunctional questionHow do you feel if that feature is absent?

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Functional and dysfunctional forms

If your hotel room includes a free

bottle of water, how do you feel?

I expect it to be that way.I like it that way.

I am neutral.I can live with it that way.

I dislike it that way.

✔

If your hotel room does not include a

free bottle of water, how do you

feel?

I expect it to be that way.I like it that way.

I am neutral.I can live with it that way.

I dislike it that way.

✔

Functionalform ofquestion

Dysfunctionalform ofquestion

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Categorizing an answer pair

Dysfunc ctional Qu uestion

Like Expect Neutral Live with Dislike

Like

Expect

Neutral

Live with

Dislike

Q E E E L

R I I I M

R I I I M

R I I I M

R R R R Q

Func

tiona

lQ

uest

ion

MandatoryLinearExciter

QuestionableReverseIndifferent

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Aggregating results

Apply stylesheets

Automate report execution

Export reports to PowerPoint

3 11 31 1 3 2

4 22 20 4 1 0

21 9 14 5 1 1

Que

stio

nabl

e

Rev

erse

Indi

ffere

nt

Man

dato

ry

Line

ar

Exci

ter

The

mes

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What to include

All of the baseline features

Some amount of linear features

But leaving room for at least a few exciters

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You are thinking about buying a new eco-friendly car. Identify examples of:

Mandatory featuresLinear featuresExciters

Your new car

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Relative weighting

Assess the impact of having a story/theme from 1-9

Assess impact of NOT having it from 1-9

Calculate the value of each story or theme relative to the entire product backlog

This gives you the relative value of that story or theme

Estimate the cost of each story theme

Calculate the cost of each story or theme relative to the entire product backlog

This gives the relative cost of that story or theme

Priority is given by (Relative Value ÷ Relative Cost)

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Relative weighting: an example

More investment choices

Portfolio rebalancing

Comply with new law

Total: R

elat

ive

Pena

lty

Tota

l Val

ue

Valu

e Pe

rcen

t

Estim

ate

Cos

t Pe

rcen

t

Prio

rity

8

9

1

6

2

9

14

11

10

35

40

31

29

100

64

40

42

146

44

27

29

100

91

115

100

Value Percent = Total Value / ∑ (Total Value)Cost Percent = Estimate / ∑ (Estimate)

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You are the VP of Product Development at MyCookSpace.com, a social networking siteYou have a minimally functional site up with 4,000 registered cooksYou are trying to grow that to 400,000 as quickly as possible before you run out of moneyYou are also interested in other features that result in revenueIdentify 4-5 epics or big features to developComplete a relative weighting worksheet

Make reasonable but wild guesses at development effort estimates

Prioritizing MyCookSpace.com

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Expert opinion

Focus needs to be on delivering value to the customer

But consider these four factors1. Delivery of new capabilities

2. Development of new knowledge

3. Mitigation of risk

4. Changes in relative cost

3

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Theme screening

Identify around 5-9 selection criteria for what is important in the next release

Select a baseline themeLikely to be included in the next release

Understood by most team members

Assess each candidate theme relative to the baseline theme

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Theme screening: an example

Continue?

The

me

ARank

Net Score

Generates revenue in Q2

Starts us integrating product lines

Competitiveness with ABC Corp.

Importance to existing customers

0

The

me

B

−

0

0

Epic

C

Base

line

The

me

The

me

D

Epic

E

Epic

F

0

−

0

0

0

−1

0

0

0

0

0

−

0 0

−

0

0

0

0

1 7 34 4 4 2

N N NY Y Y Y

Sele

ctio

n cr

iteri

aThemes

= better than0 = same as− = worse than

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Theme scoring

Like theme screening but selection criteria are weighted

Need to select a baseline theme for each criteriaAvoids category compression

Each theme is assessed against the baseline for each selection criteria

5

Much worse than reference 1Worse than reference 2

Same as reference 3Better than reference 4

Much better than reference 5

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3.90

1 3 2

Yes No Yes

Theme scoring: an example

Continue?

Rank

Net Score

Generates revenue in Q2

Starts us integrating product lines

Competitiveness with ABC Corp.

Importance to existing customers

Wei

ght

Rat

ing

Theme A

Wei

ghte

d Sc

ore

3

2

3

5

0.75

0.20

0.45

2.50

Rat

ing

Epic B

Wei

ghte

d Sc

ore

1

3

4

2

2.15

0.25

0.30

0.60

1.00

Rat

ing

Theme C

Wei

ghte

d Sc

ore

4

3

4

3

3.40

1.00

0.30

0.60

1.50

25%

10%

15%

50%

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the relative weighting exercise, completea theme screening or theme scoring worksheet for MyCookSpace.com

Theme screening or scoring

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Financialprioritization

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How much?

How long?

At what interest rate?

If you’re buying a house:It’s a $220,000 loan

For 30 years

At 7% per year

Three factors to consider

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Technique #1

Net Present Value (NPV)

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Which project would you prefer?

Year

Proje ect A Proje ect B

Investment Return Investment Return

0

1

2

3

4

5

$1,000 $1,000

$200 $3,000

$300 $500

$500 $300

$3,000 $200

$0 $0

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A dollar today is worth more than a dollar a year from now

The time-value of money

I’ll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger

today.

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Calculating the value of future dollars

To buy a $5 hamburger next Tuesday…

To buy a $5 hamburgerin a year, how much doI put in the bank today?

I would put around $4.99 in the bank today

$5.00 $5.001.10

$4.54==

Assumes 10% interest rate

The present value of $5.00 a year from now

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Present value of one future amount

Future ValuePresentValue =

$5.00= $4.54An example:

GeneralizingFV

tPV =

Simplifying

-t

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Measures the return on a theme or project as an amount of money

Net present value (NPV)

Ft -tNPV(i) = ∑ t=0

n

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NPV example

Quarter Cash Flow

-t Discounted Cash Flow

Running Total

0

1

2

3

4

-200 1.000 -200 -200

-600 0.971 -583 -783

100 0.943 94 -689

300 0.915 275 -414

500 0.888 444 30

Assuming 12% annual discount rate (3% / quarter)

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Discount rate sensitivity

Quarter Cash FlowDiscounted Cash

Flow (3%)Discounted

Cash Flow (6%)01234

Total

–200 –200 –200–600 –583 –783100 94 –689300 275 –414500 444 30100 30 –29

NPV is highly sensitive to the chosen discount rate

Do the project under these circumstances

But not under these

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Comparing NPVs

Highest NPV brings the most present-value dollars to the company

Theme NPV

Scalability

Gift registry

Ad hoc reporting

Pay by invoice

$2,100$1,253

$784$385

Comparing NPVs can be misleading. What if:•“Pay by invoice” requires

a $5 investment•“Scalability” requires

$50,000?

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Technique #2

Internal RateofReturn (IRR)

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Rather than expressing returns in dollars, we’d like to express return as a percentage

Allows for direct comparisons

NPV = how much money a project will return

ROI = how quickly an investment will grow

Return as a percentage

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Internal rate of return (IRR) and ROI

IRR = Internal Rate of ReturnOften called Return On Investment (ROI)

The interest rate at which NPV is 0

0 = PV (i*) = Ft 1+ i( )− tt= 0

n

∑

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IRR gives us the discount rate at which we don’t care whether or not we do the project

We don’t make $30; we don’t lose $29; we break even

Remember this table?

Quarter Cash Flow Discounted Cash Flow (3%)

Discounted Cash Flow (6%)

01234

Total

–200 –200 –200–600 –583 –783100 94 –689300 275 –414500 444 30100 30 –29

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Use Excel’s irr function

How to calculate ROI or IRR

−200, −600, 100, 300, 500})

An investment

day of the projectremainder of

project(4 quarters)

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Advantages and disadvantages

AdvantagesYou don’t need to guess at a discount rate like with NPV

Can be used to directly compare projects

DisadvantagesCalculation is hard to do by hand (but easy in Excel); may lead to numbers being distrusted

Cannot use in all circumstances

positive

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Technique #3

Payback period

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Payback periodThe amount of time before an initial investment is paid back

I loan you $5. You pay me back $1/week. The payback period is 5 weeks.

Quarter Cash Flow Running Total

01234

-200 -200-200 -400100 -300300 0500 500

Payback period is 3 quarters.

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AdvantagesCalculation is very easy

Longer payback period = greater risk

DisadvantagesDoesn’t consider the time-value of money

Advantages and disadvantages

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Discounted payback period

Quarter Cash Flow

-t

i=3%Discounted Cash Flow

Running Total

01234

-200 1.000 -200 -200-200 0.971 -194 -394100 0.943 94 -300300 0.915 275 -25500 0.888 444 419

investment is paid back

Discounted payback period = 4 quarters

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Net Present Value (NPV)

Expresses return as an amount of money

Return on Investment (ROI) / Internal Rate of ReturnThe interest rate at which NPV = 0

That is, at which you’d be indifferent to the investment

Expresses return as a percentage

Discounted payback periodAmount of time before discounted returns equal the investment

Expresses return as an amount of time

Financial analysis recap

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Person Weeks Cost 3-Year

Return NPV IRR D. Payback(Quarters)

Feature A

Feature B

Feature C

Feature D

Feature E

Feature F

Feature G

Feature H

Feature I

Feature J

Feature K

Feature L

Feature M

Feature N

Feature O

25 $150 $1,085 $448 133% 2

32 192 $2,109 $940 172% 4

90 $540 $2,537 $883 89% 2

48 $288 $1,360 $443 76% 4

55 $330 $900 $191 48% 2

79 $474 $1,365 $331 56% 4

90 $540 $5,964 $2,519 139% 5

50 $300 $2,415 $1,023 146% 2

15 90 $1,600 $747 221% 1

30 $180 $640 $182 65% 2

75 $450 $516 ($104) 5% NA

40 $240 $171 ($110) (12%) NA

80 $480 $1,025 $142 36% 3

18 $108 $185 $7 24% 2

12 $72 $1,505 $748 355% 1

Comparison matrix

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Mike [email protected]

twitter: mikewcohn(720) 890−6110

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Prioritizing Your Product Backlog

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