Prioritisation techniques in detail: RICE

Let’s discuss RICE scores.

RICE is a slightly more complex method than MoSCoW or a prioritisation matrix. It helps product managers to decide which tasks to work on first by calculating a numerical score based on four factors.

The four factors that contribute to a RICE score are:

• reach
• impact
• confidence
• effort

Reach corresponds to how many people your new product or feature will reach – in other words, how many user interactions will occur, perhaps calculated per month or per quarter. This number will vary depending on the scale of your product.

Impact is slightly more difficult to measure with numbers. Similarly to how tasks would be judged ‘low impact’ or ‘high impact’ in a prioritisation matrix, we can assign impact a number on a scale, for example, of 1 to 5, with 1 being low impact and 5 being high. Intercom suggests a scale from 0.25 (minimal impact) to 3 (massive impact).

Confidence can be calculated using a numerical scale (in the same way as impact) or as a percentage of how confident we are that this feature solves the problem for the user. To borrow again from Intercom, 100% would correspond to ‘high confidence’, 80% to ‘medium confidence’ and 50% ‘low confidence’, with a judgement of below 50% indicating something that should definitely be avoided.

To make the calculation simpler, 100% (high confidence) can be written as 1 and the lower percentages as the corresponding decimal – 80% (medium confidence) as 0.8 and 50% (low confidence) as 0.5.

Effort in a RICE calculation generally refers to the time a task will take, calculated in ‘person-months’, which is the amount of work a person can do in a month. For example, if a task is judged to require 3 person-months of effort, it will take 1 person 3 months to complete it or a team of 3 people 1 month to complete it. Unlike the other scores, a lower effort score is preferable.

It is important that these scores are assigned using data and information learned through user research and that you do not rely on your assumptions.

After you have assigned a value to each factor, the RICE score is calculated using this formula:

A low ‘effort’ score is desirable because it is the denominator (the number by which the others are divided). As product managers, we should aim to maximise reach, impact and confidence while minimising effort. A low effort figure means that the calculated RICE score will be higher – the bigger the score, the higher the priority of the task.

Advantages

Calculating RICE scores for different projects can help you to quickly create a consistent and largely objective framework for evaluating your priorities. It can also be very useful for communicating with stakeholders as a data-driven approach can be more convincing than a qualitative judgement of whether or not a task is urgent.

Disadvantages

The RICE method also simplifies complex and sometimes subjective factors into numerical scores. There may be differences of opinion on how these scores should be calculated, leading to confusion.

There is also still always going to be some estimation involved in assigning values to each of these factors, which may lead to inaccurate scores.

All prioritisation methods have advantages and disadvantages. As a product manager, you are expected to know which method or methods to use in which case, and ensure that you are constantly reassessing your priorities and updating your backlog throughout all stages of the product life cycle.

In the next step, we will practise using one of these techniques.