Building a SaaS product without considering input from potential clients, stakeholders, and executives is like throwing a dart in the dark. However, it’s unrealistic to include every suggestion during development or to treat all features as equal priorities.
This challenge often leaves project managers and decision-makers wondering which features to add, set aside, or prioritize. A practical way to address this is by using feature prioritization frameworks.
What is Feature Prioritization?
Feature prioritization is the process of determining which product features to develop first based on factors like:
- Cost
- Value
- Customer feedback
- Market trends
- Business objectives
Effective prioritization can significantly impact both product success and overall company growth. Successful feature prioritization demands a deep understanding of the product, market, and customer needs. It involves evaluating multiple factors and making challenging trade-offs.
This process enables companies to allocate limited resources efficiently, focusing on features that provide the highest value and align with business goals. Prioritizing features also speed up the development process, helping bring products or services to market faster.
Why Prioritize Features?
Each product includes features that offer varying levels of value to users, but as customer preferences evolve, product developers must adapt to meet these changing demands.
Consider Apple’s launch of the iPhone as a real-world example of effective feature prioritization. Initially, the iPhone’s core features were making calls, capturing high-definition photos, playing music, and browsing the internet. As market demand shifted toward apps, Apple responded by introducing the App Store, available across all its devices. This strategic adaptation allowed Apple to remain competitive.
Benefits of Feature Prioritization?
As mentioned above, feature prioritization accelerates the development process and boosts the likelihood of product success. Beyond this, here are additional key benefits of effective feature prioritization:
1. Optimal Resource Allocation
Prioritization enables efficient use of team time and company resources. By focusing on a few impactful features, brands maximize output while minimizing effort on less critical aspects. This leads to high-quality SaaS products without resource waste.
2. Goal-first Approach
A goal-oriented approach to prioritization clarifies the process and establishes a repeatable method for the product team. This consistency aligns all team members, helping maintain strategic focus throughout the project lifecycle.
3. Better Decision-making
Feature prioritization enables data-driven decisions, reducing uncertainty and internal conflict. By assessing features against measurable metrics, teams can identify which offers the most value, streamlining the decision-making process.
4. Increases Adaptability
Prioritization is an ongoing process, allowing teams to adjust quickly to market shifts and evolving product needs. Flexibility in SaaS development is essential for staying competitive.
5. Improves collaborative leadership
Effective prioritization encourages leaders to share diverse ideas that align with company goals. This ensures decisions benefit both customer needs and organizational objectives. Collaborative leadership also promotes industry expert input, fostering a professional, innovative environment.
6. Higher Customer Satisfaction
Prioritizing features that are most requested and valuable to users enhances customer satisfaction by focusing development on what users truly want. It improves the user experience and signals that the brand understands its customers’ needs. Moreover, customer-facing teams like sales and support benefit, as they can better meet customer demands.
7. Competitive Advantage
Developing a SaaS product with features that exceed user expectations helps SaaS products stand out in the market. Features that bring high value and uniqueness build loyalty and capture a larger market share, ultimately enhancing the user experience and leading to a successful product.
8. Less Stress
Effective feature prioritization can greatly reduce stress for product managers who are balancing many tasks. Clearly outlining the steps in the feature prioritization process allows managers to handle a wide range of responsibilities with ease.
How to Prioritize Features in SaaS—Feature Prioritization Frameworks
There are multiple commonly used feature prioritization frameworks used specifically in SaaS, including:
- Scoring Table Model
- ICE Framework
- PRISM Framework
- RICE Framework
- Story Mapping
- Kano Model
1. Scoring Table Model
The scoring table model assigns numerical values to features based on specific criteria, typically on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is the lowest and 10 is the highest. Values may be weighted based on multiple factors like cost, risk, value, complexity, or customer feedback.
Setting Priorities and Defining Value
Start by listing all the features you want to develop. Once you have your features, define their value. There are multiple values to consider, but for simplicity, let’s take into consideration three of them: customer value, product value, and marketing value.
- Customer Value: Measures how much a feature benefits users. High customer value indicates features that directly address user needs.
- Product Value: Assesses how a feature improves the product’s stability or functionality. For example, a feature that reduces slow run times or crashes would have high product value.
- Marketing Value: Determines a feature’s potential to attract new users or boost visibility. Valuable features should appeal to new users without alienating existing ones.
Complexity
Evaluate the complexity of building and releasing each feature. Features with high complexity may take longer to implement and could impact overall product quality.
Customer Feedback
Direct customer feedback is often ignored, but it is vital for product improvement. Consider features most requested by users and those they are least satisfied with to ensure development aligns with user needs.
Understanding the Results
After scoring each criterion, review the total scores to see which features have the highest and lowest priority.
2. ICE Framework
The ICE Scoring Model is a method to prioritize projects by assigning numerical values based on three criteria: Impact, Confidence, and Ease. It helps teams decide which features to develop next by ranking each idea on a scale of one to ten for these parameters. The scores are then multiplied to calculate the overall ICE Score.
ICE mainly focuses on balancing value, and effort can be applied to SaaS feature prioritization.
- Impact: Measures the overall value of a feature, including customer retention, expansion, and conversion.
- Confidence: Assesses the team’s ability to deliver the feature effectively within the budget.
- Ease: Evaluate the resources, time, and effort required for implementation.
The ICE method is more useful for prioritizing SaaS features when you need to achieve rapid growth from the start.
3. PRISM Framework
The PRISM framework helps SaaS project managers prioritize features by focusing on Potential Value, Risks, Incremental Effort, and Strategic Alignment.
- Potential Value: Looks at how beneficial a feature will be for customers and if it will generate financial returns.
- Risks: Assesses the resources needed for design, testing, and launch.
- Incremental Effort: This measures the budget, resources, and team size required for designing, testing, and launching features. Larger and more complex projects will definitely demand more effort.
- Strategic Alignment: Ensures features align with company priorities. Features misaligned with strategic objectives should be deprioritized until other goals are met.
4. RICE Framework
RICE is a data-driven method to prioritize features based on Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort, typically on a 1-5 or 1-10 scale.
- Reach: Evaluates the potential user base for a feature based on analytics and surveys.
- Impact: Assesses how valuable the feature is for user engagement or conversions.
- Confidence: Measures the likelihood of on-time delivery, considering resources and technical complexity.
- Effort: Estimates the resources and time required for implementation.
5. Story Mapping
Story mapping organizes features in a tree structure to see how each one improves the user experience.
In this process, you will create user stories that outline how customers use your product from start to end.
You can make a chart for the user journey by dividing it into stages like signup, trial, and adoption. Write down all the steps a user follows in each stage.
After that, your product development team can arrange the most important features and tasks in order of priority.
6. Kano Model
The Kano model prioritizes features based on their impact on customer satisfaction, identifying three types of customer needs:
- Basic features: Essential for product functionality and customer satisfaction. Without these, the product fails to meet expectations.
- Performance features: Enhance usability or functionality, directly impacting satisfaction. These features are necessary; omitting them leads to dissatisfaction.
- Delighters: Features that make the product more enjoyable. While not expected, their inclusion significantly boosts user satisfaction.
Tips for Effective Product Prioritization
Create a Unified Vision
Team alignment around a shared vision for the product ensures that decisions made during feature prioritization support the brand’s goals. Clear and consistent communication from management and stakeholders builds a strong sense of purpose across all departments.
Avoid Common Pitfalls
Prioritization should not rely solely on intuition, isolated ROI, or the loudest opinions. Instead, use a structured, objective approach to reduce bias. While sales and support requests are important, they shouldn’t overshadow strategic decision-making.
Employ a Goal-First Approach
Start by setting clear, strategic goals before assessing individual features. Evaluate each feature’s value, urgency, and feasibility using scoring models to quantify and compare impacts. This goal-first approach ensures teams focus on enhancements that offer the most value, balancing benefits with the resources required for implementation.
Combine Data-Driven Insights with Intuition
Data provides valuable insights for prioritization, but combining data with professional intuition leads to more informed decisions. Use metrics and analytics as a foundation, and rely on team experience to spot opportunities that data alone might miss.
Re-Prioritize Regularly
As market dynamics and customer needs shift, it’s essential to re-prioritize periodically. Regularly reviewing and adjusting priorities keeps the product relevant and competitive. Following an iterative approach enables teams to adapt based on feedback and changing conditions, leading to more innovative, user-focused improvements.
Arrange Features Strategically
Organize features into themes or align them with the broader product strategy before prioritizing. This organization helps visualize each feature’s contribution to overall goals, making it easier to identify which enhancements will deliver the most value.
Consider a Combination of Models for Enhanced Prioritization
Many organizations enhance their prioritization process by blending different models. Combining the Kano model with a scoring system can help balance user satisfaction with practical implementation needs, creating a more holistic approach.
Summing it up
In product management, effective feature prioritization is key to brand success. When managers prioritize features for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) wisely, they can stay focused on the brand’s vision, directing team efforts toward products that deliver consistent results and high customer satisfaction.
If you’re building a SaaS product and looking to take it to the next level, book a free call today, and let’s get started.
