PART IV - Assertive Decision Making

Scoring and Prioritization (Separating the Men from the Boys)

The PART III (Success Criteria) is one of the most important! The link is 👉 here.

In the previous post (Part III) above, I showed how I discover and define Success Criteria, categorizing them qualitatively as YES or NO, and also, if applicable, quantifying them.

Now I will show how I rank them! But... What do we have to score so far???

• At least, about 20 Success Criteria categorized as YES or NO.
• Out of these 20+, about 04 or 05 are Strategic Objectives, or the actual GOALS (quantitative indicator) of these objectives.

To better illustrate, I'll consider that these 05 are our Generic Objectives: (1) Revenue Growth, (2) Business Sustainability and Efficiency, (3) Excel in CX & Customer Success, (4) Pioneering and Innovation, and (5) People Oriented.

Regardless of the scoring method, my suggestion is to try to give a bigger weight to the Strategic Objectives and associated Goals. In this exercise, I will simply DOUBLE (x2) the points.

But what points???

I simply count how many Success Criteria are classified as "YES," doubling the amount for the strategic ones.

I'll use a fake example to clarify... Let's say the following initiatives below are mature enough to start development (Refined, efforts calculated, Definition of Ready met, etc.) but only one fits in the next Sprint:

• FEATURE A: "Push Notification of Offer in Mobile App based on Buying Behavior associated with Geolocation"
• FEATURE B: "Augmented Reality that, when informing a geolocation point, emulates the Commerce of the Region on the phone screen, street view style"

Let's suppose that FEATURE A scored as follows:

• 02 Strategic Criteria as YES = 4 Points
• 05 Auxiliary Criteria as YES = 5 Points

TOTAL 9 Points

In the same way, FEATURE B scored:

• 01 Strategic Criterion as YES = 2 Points
• 09 Auxiliary Criteria as YES = 9 Points

TOTAL 11 Points

The criteria I use most often is to choose FEATURE B, which scored more! However, depending on the context of each organization, one can reverse the logic and prioritize those that scored more with Strategic Criteria.

Imagine a Backlog of various initiatives, ideas, features, etc., all scored and structured in a Roadmap, with arguments (based on the score) justifying the Planning... when presenting to the board, obviously there may be changes, or even questions and requests to change the order of some initiatives. The reasons for these changes can become "NEW" SUCCESS CRITERIA for future planning! It is an organic and corporate feedback process.

Below is a simple simulation of how the presentation to the board of prioritized initiatives would look like (sorry, it's in Portuguese).

Note that for this illustrative context, I added a column at the end for the board to supposedly suggest a "Final Priority" during or after the executive review, which does not necessarily follow the initial ordering criterion but (in this hypothetical example) closely matches the original proposal. These "differences" in theory would be proposed by the executives with some basis, which, as I mentioned, may be undisclosed or unknown goals, or may become new criteria for future exercises.

If someone requests the scoring justification of a particular initiative, we can easily open the "rationale" - whether in a tool or a spreadsheet - and show how the scoring was done for each success criterion, and interactively, the executives can endorse or alter it according to their strategic understanding.

It won't always be easy - in fact, almost never! Often, we're asked to deliver more than the capacity, or demanded to accommodate other initiatives, or even challenged about the "why" of a particular item being on the Roadmap... and it's part of the game!

In a humble way, what do I usually do? LISTEN AND LEARN! However, if there is conviction about certain ideas, show your side of the story and your reasoning professionally. And there are techniques for that...

Some artifacts can help... Among the things I heard, learned, and used in "defending" the planning, I list some below:

• The Cost of Not Doing: This is about exploring the consequences (financial and strategic) of not moving forward with actions or projects... Presenting concrete examples of implications, even if simulated, when possible, can help a lot...
• TRIPOD: COST, TIME, SCOPE: There's no magic... Explaining the dependency of these 3 dimensions, and how changing one of them impacts the others, will sensitize the audience to get more financial, human, or material resources (COST), or extended deadline (TIME), or even break the delivery into smaller parts (SCOPE)... Remembering that changes can be very positive...
• Focus on Results: Always question yourself - or your interlocutor - if such an initiative is aligned with the strategic objectives. At the end of the day, everything has to generate results, or pave the way for creating value...
• "NO" vs. "YES but not now": One way to negotiate is to set a deadline or conditions for a requested prioritization - but without a plausible basis - by some stakeholder. Questioning the reasons in a balanced way, but appreciating the interest in a particular idea, will demonstrate consideration for the request, flexibility, and maturity in management, and mainly mean a respectul attitude for the executives' opinion...
• Urgent vs. Important: Expanding the case above about "Yes! But not now", we can buy time and do an analysis of "importance versus urgency." It is worth questioning to prioritize important initiatives BEFORE they become urgent (or critical)...
• Decision and Renunciation: As a rule, every decision (or choice) implies some renunciation. It is vital to be aware of these trade-offs...
• The 'NO' is also important: We need to know when and for what to say NO to, and it helps if we can justify that it is to contribute to the focus on objectives, or even discard potential distractions...
• Low Hanging Fruit: In free translation of the executives' favorite expression, "fruits within reach." That is, start with low-complexity and high-impact tasks, preferably ready to start (DoR met). It is very common that after Refining initiatives, epics, tasks, etc., we change the planning, and it is more than recommended! Personally, I believe that the combo "ready, low-complexity, refined, and defined demands" is an excellent criteria to balance with the Success Criteria...

It's really a fantastic exercise to understand and validate the real objectives of an organization, and even getting to know the way our Stakeholders and internal clients think!

In a complex reality, where the EXCESS OF INFORMATION, DATA DUMPS and variables over time make decision-making difficult - and replicate this same difficulty in MEASURING RESULTS, an initial simple analysis of this type can be an excellent starting point, and as I have already said - and insist - there is a great chance to sensitize our internal and external clients.

With no high expectations, I use this simple model instead of more robust techniques widely used by corporations, where "Success Criteria" are not always considered... and that's fine! For these cases, what can be done is to do this scoring exercise manually and see if the prioritization reaches a similar result to the methods (which, when well used, are indeed efficient). At the very least, you will learn a lot about the company's strategy...

I conclude this final article in the "Assertive Decision Making" series with a list of strategic prioritization and planning methods:

• MoSCoW (easy and widely used as a step in various design methodologies)
• RCVE Matrix (considers COMPLEXITY x VALUE)
• SWOT or PESTEL (I find them very similar, so I put them together, good for analyzing existing scenarios and strategies)
• SMART (not exactly for planning, but very good for ensuring "viable and measurable goals")
• LEAN INCEPTION (from the Brazilian product guru Paulo Caroli, as I have already mentioned, the best in my opinion for defining MVP)
• BSC or Balanced Scorecard (there are several models, I don't feel comfortable listing a specific one... I did a lot when I was at IBM)
• RICE Score (good when possible to quantify, and like the RCVE Matrix, also considers effort in the score... I don't use the "R" for Reach, as "I" and "C" work enough for me...)
• Cause and Effect Diagram (there are several, but the one I researched a bit more is the Fishbone Diagram, or Ishikawa diagram, by Kaoru Ishikawa)
• Ansoff Matrix (the one I know the least, but the consensus is that it is very efficient only if we have extensive knowledge of the market and competition)

That's it! I hope these articles can inspire and help those who had the same difficulties as I did over the years!

Here are the links to the previous parts of the full article:

• PART I: PRIORITIZATION JOURNEY
• PART II: DISCOVERING STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
• PART III: SUCCESS CRITERIA
• PART IV: SCORING AND PRIORITIZATION

Thank you to those who accompanied me on this journey so far! Big hug and see you next time, PRODUCT PEOPLE! 🚀

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