Month: March 2023

I’ve previously explained the RICE and ICE techniques for prioritisation. Both techniques are frameworks used to evaluate and rank projects or tasks based on their potential impact, feasibility, and difficulty. However, I wanted to highlight the two key differences between them to help you chose the right tool for your project.

The ICE technique (Impact, Confidence, Ease) assigns scores to each project based on the potential impact of the project, the level of confidence in its success, and the ease of implementing it. The scores for each factor are multiplied to get a final score, which is used to rank the projects in order of priority.

The RICE technique (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) takes a similar approach, but adds an additional factor: Reach. Reach refers to the number of people or customers who would benefit from the project. Each project is assigned a score out of 10 for each factor, with the scores for Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort multiplied to get a final score.

The main difference, therefore, between the two techniques is the inclusion of Reach which makes the technique particularly useful for marketing campaigns or projects aimed at customer acquisition i.e. where the breadth of impact is important.

Another difference is that the RICE technique places more emphasis on effort, which refers to the level of resources or time required to implement the project. This can help teams to prioritise projects that are feasible to implement given the available resources.

Technique	Factors	Calculation	Purpose
RICE	Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort	(Reach x Impact x Confidence) / Effort	Projects with potential to reach a large audience or that require significant resources to implement
ICE	Impact, Confidence, Ease	Impact x Confidence x Ease	Smaller projects or tasks that can be implemented more easily

I hope this helps!

Yesterday, i talked about the RICE technique for prioritisation. Today, i want to introduce ICE technique, another prioritisation framework used to evaluate and prioritise tasks or projects based on three factors: Impact, Confidence, and Ease. Tomorrow, i’ll compare them both.

• Impact refers to the potential positive outcome or benefit of completing a particular task or project, considering the potential impact of the task or project on the overall goals or objectives of the organisation or project. For example, is this going to reduce costs? Increase customer loyalty or satisfaction? Reduce developer frustration?
• Confidence refers to the level of certainty or confidence that the task or project will be successful – factors such as available resources, expertise, and potential roadblocks or obstacles. Are we likely to be able to deliver?
• Ease refers to the level of difficulty or complexity of completing the task or project, taking account of things like the level of effort required, the time needed, the necessary skills needed, or difficulty obtaining or using resources. Perhaps the project isn’t that hard – but we simply don’t have a developer with the right skills to implement it, or perhaps we can’t support it/keep it running over time.

To use the ICE technique, each item is assigned a score out of 10 for each factor, and the scores are then multiplied together to calculate a final score for each task or project. The higher the final score, the higher we should prioritise completing that item.

This creates a simple yet effective framework which allows us to compare the total potential impact, feasibility, and difficulty. For example, you might use this to prioritise potential new product ideas for a tech startup:

Idea	Idea Description	Impact	Confidence	Ease
1	A new mobile app that helps people track their daily water intake and reminds them to stay hydrated throughout the day	8 – there is a growing awareness of the importance of staying hydrated	7 – the team has some experience building mobile apps but this one would require some new features	8 – the basic features can be implemented quickly
2	A new software tool that automates social media marketing for small businesses, allowing them to create, schedule and publish posts on multiple platforms with ease	9 – social media marketing is critical for small businesses but can be time-consuming	9 – the team has expertise in social media marketing and has built similar tools in the past	6 – integrating with multiple social media platforms and providing advanced features will take time and resources
3	A new AI-powered chatbot that can assist customers with basic support queries, reducing the load on the support team	7 – many companies are looking for ways to reduce support costs and improve customer satisfaction	8 – the team has some experience with chatbot development and has access to AI libraries	7 – developing the chatbot and integrating it with the company’s support systems will require some time and effort)

Using the ICE technique, we would multiply the scores for each idea to get a final score:

Idea 1: 8 x 7 x 8 = 448 Idea 2: 9 x 9 x 6 = 486 Idea 3: 7 x 8 x 7 = 392

Based on these scores, we would prioritise the ideas in the following order:

1. Idea 2 – social media marketing (486)
2. Idea 1 – app to track daily water intake (448)
3. Idea 3 – customer support chatbot (392)

So – our potential startup should probably focus on an app to help small businesses with their social media, then track water intake, and finally a chatbot. This doesn’t take account of the fact that there are already 10,000,000 apps for tracking water intake and i’m not sure how to make money on them, or that social media marketing is a field littered with failed apps.

Imagine that you are a product manager at a software company, and you have three potential features to prioritise for the next development cycle. How do you pick between them? There are many ways, but one i recently learned about is the RICE model – a prioritisation framework used by product managers, teams, and organisations to prioritise projects, features, or tasks based on their potential impact, effort, and other factors. RICE stands for Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort, and it provides a quantitative approach to decision-making.

1. Reach: Reach refers to the number of users, customers, or stakeholders who will be affected by the project or feature over a specific period (e.g., a month or a quarter). It is essential to estimate the reach to understand how many people will benefit from the implementation.
2. Impact: Impact measures the potential benefit or positive effect that the project, feature, or task will have on users, customers, or stakeholders. Impact is usually measured on a scale, such as 1 (minimal impact) to 3 (significant impact), but the scale can be adjusted to suit the organization’s needs.
3. Confidence: Confidence is an estimate of how certain the team is about the reach, impact, and effort assessments. This factor is crucial because it accounts for the inherent uncertainty in making predictions. Confidence is expressed as a percentage, typically ranging from 50% to 100%.
4. Effort: Effort is an estimate of the amount of time, resources, or work needed to complete the project, feature, or task. Effort can be measured in person-hours, person-days, or any other metric that reflects the resources required to complete the work.

To use the RICE model, you assign values to each of the four factors (Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort) for every project, feature, or task under consideration. Then, calculate the RICE score using the following formula:

RICE score = (Reach * Impact * Confidence) / Effort

Projects or features with the highest RICE scores should be prioritised over those with lower scores. This method helps ensure that the team is working on the most valuable and impactful initiatives, while also taking into account the resources and level of certainty associated with each project.

For example:

Feature A: Improve the onboarding process for new users

• Reach: 1000 users per month
• Impact: 3 (high impact, as it can significantly improve user retention)
• Confidence: 90% (high confidence in estimates and potential outcome)
• Effort: 200 person-hours

Feature B: Implement a dark mode theme

• Reach: 300 users per month
• Impact: 2 (moderate impact, as it enhances user experience)
• Confidence: 80% (fairly confident in the estimates)
• Effort: 100 person-hours

Feature C: Optimise backend performance

• Reach: 500 users per month
• Impact: 1 (low impact, as most users won’t notice the difference)
• Confidence: 70% (uncertain about the exact impact and effort)
• Effort: 150 person-hours

Now calculate the RICE scores for each feature:

Feature A RICE score = (1000 * 3 * 0.9) / 200 = 13.5 Feature B RICE score = (300 * 2 * 0.8) / 100 = 4.8 Feature C RICE score = (500 * 1 * 0.7) / 150 = 2.33

Based on the RICE scores, the priority order for these features should be:

1. Feature A: Improve the onboarding process for new users (13.5)
2. Feature B: Implement a dark mode theme (4.8)
3. Feature C: Optimize backend performance (2.33)

Using the RICE model, you can see that Feature A should be the top priority, as it has the highest potential impact on users with a reasonable amount of effort.

Tomorrow, i’ll explain the ICE technique.