
Product Backlog Prioritisation For Product Owners – Part 2
The model breaks user stories into 4 categories that the customer uses to describe them:
● Performance – the new feature increases the satisfaction of a customer
● Must-Be – the feature is considered a standard features to meet market expectations and competition
● Attractive – unexpected features that surprise and delight users
● Indifferent – features that do not really add or subtract from the product
Since this is based on questionnaires this is a great model when testing prototypes or existing versions. This method is based solely on customer’s reactions and thus needs customer or tester input to continue to help develop the product and should be used in small companies or in instances where there are few stakeholders but lots of potential customers.
Paired Prioritization
It’s up to the product owner to work with stakeholders to get in the user stories to meet expectations. The quick way to align stakeholders is by doing paired prioritization. Paired prioritization is putting one feature “against” another feature and forcing individuals to choose which one they think is most important. The team cannot execute successfully on both of the features, so the stakeholder must choose one. This forces the person into a position of choice and by making the comparisons simple, just 2 different things, it makes it easier for them to come to a decision. You can do this multiple times in a round robin elimination style, and this will result in a complete prioritized list, taking 2 features at a time.
100 Point Method
Another great prioritization method for prioritization is the 100 point method. In this method, the product owner will lay out the features still to be done and give everyone in the room 100 points to use to “vote” on feature importance. In the end, the group then discusses the features with the highest votes and comes to a consensus regarding the highest priority features.
So now that you, the product owner, have some tools to prioritize, know that’s it’s not a perfect process. Not all stakeholders will be aligned, not all team members will see the value in a high-priority feature, and even you may question certain pushes from both the team and the stakeholders. These tools, however, will help to shape conversations and drive consensus building but at the end of the day there will be conflicts and differences of opinion, it’s up to you to help keep these conversations moving the product forward and make smart decisions along the way.
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Our Book Recommendations
We found these books great for finding out more information on Agile Scrum:
Master of Agile – Scrum Product Owner With 59 Seconds Agile (Video Training Course)
Introductory Offer: Free Course
What is this course?
This ‘Master of Agile – Scrum Product Owner With 59 Seconds Agile (Video Training Course)’ provides an in-depth understanding of the Scrum Product Owner roles and responsibilities
You will explore the Agile Scrum project life-cycle, including how an Agile User Story is created, to how we know when it is ‘done’
This course is aimed at those with or without prior knowledge and experience of the Agile values and principles
During this course you will learn the tools needed to succeed as a Scrum Product Owner
What will you learn?
You will gain an in-depth understanding of the Scrum Product Owner roles and responsibilities, and you will be able to
- Fully understand the role of the Scrum Product Owner
- Understand the roles involved in an Agile project
- Create an effective Product Backlog
- Effectively participate in Scrum Meetings such as the Daily Stand-up, Sprint Review and Retrospective
- Identify the roles involves in the Scrum Team

What topics are covered within this course?
You will cover the following topics during this course:
- An Introduction to Agile Project Management (Product Owner)
- The 12 Agile Principles (Product Owner)
- The Declaration of Interdependence (Product Owner)
- Introduction to Scrum (Product Owner)
- Scrum Project Roles (Product Owner)
- The Agile Project Life-cycle (Product Owner)
- Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog (Product Owner)
- Epics and Personas (Product Owner)
- Sprint Planning (Product Owner)
- User Stories (Product Owner)
- The Daily Scrum (Product Owner)
- The Product Backlog (Product Owner)
- Scrum Charts (Product Owner)
- Review and Retrospective (Product Owner)
- Validating a Sprint (Product Owner)
- Releasing the Product (Product Owner)