Prioritizing features for the product roadmap

Build what matters for your users and increase the value of your platform using the RICE prioritization framework

John Scrugham

Rahul Vohra

Des Traynor

The right variables in your product prioritization ensures you’re creating the most value from your limited product development resources. One of my favorite prioritization frameworks comes from one of my favorite Coda clients: B2B SaaS chat and internet relationship management platform, Intercom. They created a composite score that combines reach, impact, effort, and your confidence (

RICE⁠

) of those metrics to stack rank features and focus on the right development.

While RICE comes from Intercom, many other product teams like

FranceTV⁠

and

Superhuman⁠

use this framework to prioritize their roadmaps.

RICE

Below, you’ll find how to calculate the RICE score and use it to prioritize your product roadmap. The higher the score for your feature idea, the more likely it’s the best option to start working on. Like all ranking exercises, the formula isn’t perfect, and mixed with personal biases, can be bent in ways it wasn’t intended to be used. Even with the strongest sways of personal opinion, this framework will provide a positive shift from gut / opinions / passion conversations to debating about the actual mechanics that deliver great product: reach and impact constrained by effort.

⁠

Reach

Number of accounts (or users) impacted over a given time period.

Impact

How much this will move the needle on our goal.

Effort

The lift this feature will take to bring to market.

Confidence

Level of confidence in the estimates for reach, impact, and effort.

There are no rows in this table

⁠

Get the template

⁠

RICE template Organize your roadmap to maximize impact.⁠

Gallery

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.