PMI-ACP training: Agile Prioritization technique

Prioritization is one of the significant theories of agile practices and an underlying theme for “PMI-ACP certification exam” engagements towards accomplishing an agile certification. Prioritization in scholarly terms infers the choice of orchestrating things in assembling their significance. Prioritization in agile is the act of cherry-picking in what arranges the agile group will work on the inevitabilities in a venture. Empathetic prioritization is fundamental for all projects, but it gets to be particularly acute in agile as an agile project is time-boxed with a robust set of assets that needs prioritization in arrange to suit the time and budget imperatives. Inspire prioritization process makes a difference in the agile team to consider the simple tiniest climaxes energetic to form patronadmiration. Appropriate to method agile prioritization, it is indispensable to comprehend the factors that a product owner requests to consider before determining the priorities. 

Agile Prioritization Techniques

1. MoSCoW prioritization 

In the DSDM methodology, the priorities are articulated as per the MoSCoW model:

The obligatory requirements are given the chief priority. Succeeding priority is given to the requirements that are extremely anticipated, though not mandatory. The next priority is given to the requirement that is agreeable to have, and the final deliberation is given to the requirements which will not work in the process then.

2. Kano model 

This prioritization technique ascertains what features a product should possess. It identifies different product features and measures their presence or absence against customer satisfaction. Some features will only create a neutral stance if existing, but repugnance if lacking. It uses simple illustrations to plot out the rapport between elements and customer’s satisfaction. There are three types of user needs in the Kano Model: essential, performance, and attractive.

3. The 100 dollar test

The 100 dollar test, or cumulative voting, is an appealing and upfront technique. 

Paramount is significant for gathering stakeholders in a prioritization conference and making a list of alternatives to be prioritized. All participants are given a limited amount of imaginary units. Each of them should split the amount among the given options. After that, you can compute the total units for each alternative and mandate them for that reason.

4. Priority poker

Priority poker is a swift and easy enterprise game for prioritizing bits and pieces. It’s called priority poker because it’s very similar to forecasting poker in which a technique for gauging the costs of the user stories wildly used in Agile development projects. Beforehand the game, the moderator creases all the people that need to be involved in the prioritization process, such as stakeholders, product owners, designers, developers, domain experts, and perhaps even users. The moderator will also need to prepare the list of prioritized tasks and a set of priority cards to provide to each player. The number of cards in this set depends on how many levels of priority are useful in this case. Every single contributor picks the card that they contemplate is the most appropriate ranking for that task and places the card face down on the table. When all participants have made their selection, all the cards are flipped at the same time. The alterations are debated, and the game goes on until the estimates are around the same level.

Inference

The Pareto principle states that crudely 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Put differently: 80% of the company’s or project’s benefits come from 20% of the time disbursed by its staff. In an Agile product development context, the same rule would be something like 80% of the product value comes from 20% of product backlog items. But how can you outline what tasks must be included in this “mystic 20%”? Getting 20% to contain your most vigorous tasks means solving the prioritization problem in the most prime way. The paybacks of these methods lie in the statistic that they are based on the adept opinion of the team and are quick and easy to complete. The primary supposition, and fault, of all four, is that it requires the team to have a good awareness of the product. When the product backlog has a lot of items, and the members have different levels of familiarity with the product features, it would be difficult for them to rank them. In such a case, their expert assessments could be very rough estimates. On the other hand, using at least one of the prioritization techniques is much better than to let “fire depiction” your priorities, which sometimes may occur when you are, for instance, a startup. Don’t let the fires get your project!