What Is the Product Management Prioritization Matrix?

What is prioritization in product management?

Prioritization in product management is a planned process that evaluates the relative importance of ideas, requests, and tasks to deliver the greatest customer value in the shortest time.

A successful product prioritization exercise gains stakeholder confidence and creates a holistic team vision while minimizing wasteful activities.

Product management prioritization matrix definition

The product management prioritization matrix is a visualization exercise that guides product teams on the relative importance of product responsibilities. By using these principles, teams can decide what to work on next.

A product management prioritization matrix helps teams find answers to questions such as:

• Is the team working on the tasks that deliver the greatest business value?
• Are the available resources being utilized in the best possible manner?
• Are the product activities actively contributing to the team and organizational goals?
• Is the team ready and prepared to take the product to market?
• Is the team focusing on activities that deliver customer value?

Why is a product management prioritization matrix needed?

49% of product managers are unsure if their product meets customers’ needs.

Half the product managers surveyed don’t know how to prioritize product tasks without real market feedback. Teams may get pulled in different directions. They may prioritize based on support requests, gut reactions, or feature popularity.

While one stakeholder may request a specific feature, another may put forth a completely different product direction. The product manager may fall into the feature superiority battle and lose sight of delivering value to the end-user. Product prioritization frameworks can help with this.

Value and complexity product prioritization matrix framework

A value and complexity quadrant is one of the most widely used product management prioritization matrix frameworks.

Value is defined as the benefits consumers will get from a product feature. The feature should help:

• Solve customer problems
• Simplify the customer workflow
• Add to the company’s bottom line revenues
• Support end-users in achieving the desired outcome.

Complexity is the level of company effort required to deliver a specific product feature. It includes:

• Reviewing the time, cost, and resources required to build a feature
• Calculating the number of hours in weeks, months, or years to produce a specific product functionality
• Identifying the time, training, and resources required to train the product team
• Arranging technology and infrastructure needs 

 Here’s a look at how this works:

1. A simple 2x2 grid matrix is plotted with ‘value’ on one axis and ‘complexity’ on the other.
2. Teams assign complexity and value to each product update, feature, fix, or initiative.
3. Four different sections are created in the matrix. These include:

• Quick wins to be executed first — features with high business value that is easy to complete
• Potential product features that are risky to execute — valuable projects with high cost/resource needs
• Nice-to-have features — ideas for small product improvements
• Timesink features — potential features/improvements that waste time and resources (these should be avoided completely)

Measuring value and complexity helps determine priority for product features and allows teams to make more effective product decisions. 

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