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What is it?

Agile project management is largely based on the development team completing the requirements from most important to least important, as picked by the customer.

We may need to help or work with the customer to prioritise these requirements, using the following tools.

MoSCoW

• Must have: Needs to be included for the project to be successful.
• Should have:This will add value but isn’t essential for the project to be successful.
• Could have:Would be nice but we could ultimately do without.
• Will not have:We can leave these until last (if there is budget or time remaining) or not at all.

Kano Analysis

Kano analysis operates on the idea of:

• Delighters or attractive quality: That provide an extra special (above and beyond) experience but no dissatisfaction if not there.
• Satisfiers or one-dimensional quality: Where a customer is satisfied if there, and dissatisfied if not there.
• Dissatisfiers or must-be quality: the most basic requirements that customers take for granted, where the customer is dissatisfied if they are not present, but not additionally satisfied if present.

Fist of Five

The Fist of Five is a voting technique that allows the team or stakeholders to vote on requirements when a clear decision can’t be made.

• The team facilitator asks the team to show their level of support for an item.
• Each team member responds by holding up the number of fingers that corresponds to the level of support (five is the most).
• If a team member holds up fewer than three fingers, she is given the opportunity to state their objections and the team may respond.
• The fist of five continues until everyone holds up three or more fingers or agrees to move on.

Multi-Voting

Also “Voting with Dots”.

1. Sum up the number of requirements
2. Give each person 20 percent of that number in dots (for example, if you have 10 potential items to vote on, each participant receives 2 dots)
3. Participants put a dot next to the items they think are most important.
4. Sum up the dots for each requirement and rank the requirements by their votes.

You can also make the second step private, so people don’t follow the crowd or be afraid to vote on items that have received smaller numbers of votes.

Spending Monopoly Money

Spending Monopoly money gives each stakeholder an equal amount of pretend cash to spend on the different items in the requirements backlog.

• Participants can put all their money on one feature or item, or they can spread it out over the items they believe are most valuable.
• You then sum up the amount spent on each feature and rank them accordingly.

Lean Customer Benefits

A Lean method of prioritising requirements against the customer driven metrics can also work. Rate each requirement from one to five against the following:

1. Quality

How much will it reduce defects, reduce rework, or increase longevity?

2. Delivery

How much will it reduce the time from order to fulfillment? Or, increase the speed.

3. Cost

How much will it reduce the cost to produce the item?

Making a list of requirements and prioritising them according to customer value is a core component of Agile. Use these tools to your advantage!

– David McLachlan

– See all the Agile Certified Practitioner Videos –