Spreadsheet prioritization framework quackery

How the illusion of science gets in the way of building the most valuable products.

Prioritization frameworks are the homeopathy of the PM world – seemingly scientific, but ultimately a bit...meh. They promise a scientific approach to decision-making, a world where perfect scores on MoSCoW or RICE charts dictate what gets built. But here's the dirty secret – while an interesting exercise, spreadsheets cannot prioritize for you.

Why prioritization frameworks fall flat

There's a seductive allure to a framework's clean lines and neat boxes. You can't argue against numbers. But the reality is that product decisions rarely exist in a pristine spreadsheet world.

Here's how frameworks can lead us astray:

1. The cult of the quick win

Prioritization frameworks often incentivize focusing on low-hanging fruit, neglecting bigger, unknown, strategic bets or with longer-term payoffs. This is ok for mature products that only optimize to extract more value, but this will never lead to the next wave of growth.

If you continue with the quick win approach, you will be blindsided by a competitor who will make your quick wins irrelevant because they delivered big value that you could not see (or, worse, saw but never prioritized).

2. Gaming the system

Let's be honest: people are resourceful. A number-focused framework can be easily manipulated to favor pet projects or suffer from confirmation bias. Suddenly, that "nice-to-have" feature magically inflates its "reach" score.

3. Blind faith in numbers

Frameworks can lull PMs into a false sense of security, trusting the numbers over their own intuition. But product management isn't pure math. There's an art to it, a feel for the market and your users that spreadsheets can't capture. This feel, often called “product sense”, is built on years of domain knowledge, previous experience, etc.

I understand it's comfortable: “I didn't make this call; the numbers did.” But to be a great product person, one must commit to decisions, even (especially?) ambiguous ones.

4. Executives not falling for it

Ever spend hours crafting a beautiful prioritization chart, only to have a C-Level executive shrug it off and mandate to build a certain pet feature? That's because the quackery of spreadsheet prioritization was deemed as BS — and since you don't have a better argument than “this feature has a 10.3 RICE score while this other is just 10.1”, you lost their confidence, and they go with whatever they think is best. Certainly very annoying, but you had it coming.

Building on a better foundation

So, what should product managers and leaders do? Throw out the frameworks entirely? Not quite. They are helpful as a thinking methodology, but ultimately, the decision has subjective aspects. But we must address the root cause of the blind faith in numbers. It often boils down to two things:

1. Either PMs are misjudging their role, thinking that what they do is pure science and not with equal parts art/feeling/product sense or whatever you call it;

2. Or they adopt prioritization by numbers because they want some semblance of control. Often because their leaders are mandating conflicting solutions. They want to “prove” feature X is more important than Y, so they don't let the CEO down by saying “no” to their pet project. It can also be that the “lack of control” felt by PMs is impostor syndrome — they don't want to commit to something because they are afraid of being wrong.

The solution to problem 1 is to align with that PM, but for number 2, I find a few things can help:

1. The 70/20/10 rule of thumb

Fear of big, hairy, unknown problems/opportunities is normal. But any organization that avoids this eventually is toppled by competitors thinking broader/differently. On the other hand, organizations that only work on left-field initiatives might lose their current business because they only work on future stuff and forget the present.

At an organizational level, leaders should use the 70/20/10 rule of thumb for resource allocation: 70% goes to your core business, 20% to adjacent innovations, and 10% to wild ideas. This ensures stability while nurturing future growth and also guides PMs about what the business expects of them.

2. Allocate goals, not features

It should be clear what business goals a team must contribute to and how much this contribution should be. Product leaders need to allocate clear goals to their product managers and let them loose on how to achieve them. I am not saying to go to macromanagement, arguably as bad as micromanagement. However, product leaders must trust their people to make the best decisions on the ground. You can debate and be their roadmap editor, but it's essential to give PMs the space to deliver results (and be judged by them).

3. Share goals to resolve conflicts of prioritization

Spreadsheets are often used as weapons in the corporate war by product teams with dependencies on other teams to achieve their goals:

PM1: — Look at this amazing RICE score, my feature will deliver on the strategic goal X, your team has to help mine!
PM2: — Well, the thing is that my team is working on goal Y. — Unsaid, but thought: — And my promotion depends on me achieving it.

The root cause is that they should work together but don't have common goals (likely the product leader's fault). As a product leader, you must be cognizant of that and allocate the same goal to teams that must work together to achieve something.

4. Incentivise PMs to talk about the impact of deliveries

There is nothing wrong with executing and delivering on features. It's essential to what we do. But there must be a tight feedback loop between “we did this” and “so we achieved that.”

In feature factory type of companies (fertile ground for spreadsheet prioritization), this feedback loop will start to educate PMs and stakeholders pushing for features about the impact of their decision. Most people, when faced with the reality that their brilliant idea didn't move the needle, will start to look for other ways to prioritize.

(OK, some will push harder and blame the team for “not doing it right”. It might not be a place to stay, though).

5. Have a clear strategy (and evangelize it)

If either the company or product strategies are unclear, it is harder for PMs to prioritize. If they have no logical way to prioritize between competing features (or even goals), they are likely to look for a spreadsheet for help.

Closing thought

Prioritization frameworks (like any framework) are tools, not gospels. They should be used as input to the decision but not as the decision maker. They can't replace product judgment. Spreadsheets are not accountable to goals; people are.

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