Being a key player a software project can be a rewarding venture, especially when it’s a new, innovative initiative. Developers are eager to dig into creation and problem-solving, but they may be faced with multiple, competing requests for features and/or improvements, making prioritization challenging.
Deciding what to tackle first in a software project has a big impact on the timeline and costs—and the software’s ultimate success and value for end users. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council share smart, tested strategies to help a development team with a lengthy “wish list” determine which tasks and features to prioritize. These practical tips can help you make informed decisions that align with both users’ needs and overall business goals.
1. Take A Customer-Centric Approach
Customer-centricity and delight are the ultimate objectives of every software project, and maintaining a clear view of which features will deliver the highest customer satisfaction is critical for developers. Focusing on outcomes allows a product development team to have a clear understanding of the top priorities within a project and provides guidance for the team if competing priorities clash. – Venkatesh Jayaraman, ModMed
2. Shift Security Left
Developers need to build security into every stage of the product development life cycle. That means bringing your security team in early, keeping them involved throughout and using CI/CD pipelines to test software, both in isolation and with other systems to avoid another global crisis. You can wind up creating a better, safer and more resilient product by bringing security in as soon as possible. – Jim Taylor, RSA Security
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3. Align Priorities With The Overall Business Strategy
Keep a dialog open with the product team to understand how a product’s priorities fit with business strategy. Development should be value-driven; therefore, it’s a collaboration between the product team and engineers to understand the “want” so they can figure out the “how.” – Alex Ford, Encompass Corporation
4. Hold A Daily Huddle
While organizations often subscribe to a specific methodology, for those less formally organized, I recommend adopting the daily huddle. It truly helps to ensure that the entire team is on the same page about what is most important to accomplish today—and what may be standing in the way of meeting that goal. This prioritizes what’s most important and keeps the project on the correct path. – Josh Dunham, Reveel
5. Maximize Resources For Impact
It’s especially important for young companies and startups to build efficiently and effectively. Larger companies can get away with less structure in some ways, but smaller companies can’t waste resources. Remember, too, that it’s hard to get everything you want in a build, so understand the priorities and what’s most impactful, since that’s what’s most valuable. – Jordan Yallen, MetaTope
6. Try The ‘MoSCoW’ Strategy
“MoSCoW,” as it is commonly known, is a strategy for prioritizing task or feature development within an Agile project. It stands for M: “must have,” S: “should have,” C: “could have,” and W: “won’t have.” The categorization for each function being considered is determined by the business value score, along with the estimated resources (both human and infrastructure) its development requires. – Rajat Sharma, Radixtop IT
7. Address Prospects’ Pain Points
Prospects’ pain points are an essential consideration in software development, especially for startups. It is much harder to acquire new customers than to keep existing ones. Thus, prioritizing features that can help sales sell the product can be a valid strategy for achieving growth. – Kevin Korte, Univention
8. Focus On High-Risk Vulnerabilities
Developers spend half of their time investigating and fixing vulnerabilities, but the majority of those don’t actually affect the enterprise. Rather than drowning in useless alerts, developers should leverage technologies that analyze reachability and application change impact to prioritize the 20% of the issues that are causing 80% of the risk. This way, they can spend more time delivering value to the organization. – Varun Badhwar, Endor Labs
9. Adopt A Value-Driven Strategy
Developers can prioritize tasks by adopting a value-driven development strategy, which focuses on assessing the business impact and user value of each feature. This involves collaborating closely with stakeholders to understand priorities, then using a scoring system to rank tasks by impact, urgency and feasibility. This strategy ensures resources are allocated to high-impact areas that drive project success. – Nicola Sfondrini, PWC
10. Start With Essential Features And Gather Feedback
Developers must balance creating a minimum viable product with delighting customers. Focus on essential features to quickly meet core needs and gather early feedback. Stay aware of macro trends, customer needs and the competitive landscape for timely relevance. Align development with the sales cycle to support business goals, foster rapid innovation and maintain a competitive edge. – Sagar Ganapaneni, Intuit SMB MediaLabs
11. Leverage Impact Mapping
Developers can prioritize tasks by using impact mapping, a technique that connects project goals to deliverable features by mapping out the intended impact of each feature on business objectives. This strategic approach ensures that the most impactful features—those that drive the desired outcomes—are prioritized, keeping development aligned with broader business goals. – Jagadish Gokavarapu, Wissen Infotech
12. Use The ‘RICE’ Framework
One strategy is to use the “RICE” framework: Prioritize tasks based on reach, impact, confidence and effort. This helps developers evaluate features by their potential impact on users, business goals and resource requirements, ensuring they focus on high-value tasks that drive meaningful outcomes. – Sarah Choudhary, Ice Innovations
13. Consider Dependencies In Advance
Developers must think about dependencies in advance to reduce risk and deliver desired outcomes. Dependencies are any tasks that impact the project timeline. To manage them effectively, create a dependency map, prioritize critical path tasks, communicate, use project management tools and anticipate issues. – Sarath Babu Yalavarthi, AT&T
14. Conduct Regular Prioritization Reviews
Projects evolve. New information, changing requirements or a bug that impacts a large user base can necessitate a shift in priorities. That’s why regular prioritization reviews are so critical. They help identify potential roadblocks or risks early on. When reevaluating the product backlog, remember to balance new feature development with addressing technical debt and maintaining code quality. – Konstantin Klyagin, Redwerk
15. Be Guided By Customer Feedback
One of the most important things developers can do to make sure they are prioritizing feature development wisely is to listen to customer feedback. They can do this by reviewing data themselves and having regular conversations with the sales team and customer support. – Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
16. Create An Impact Versus Effort Matrix
One effective strategy for developers to prioritize tasks is using the impact versus effort matrix. This framework helps teams categorize tasks by their potential impact and the effort required. Focusing on high-impact, low-effort tasks first allows developers to maximize productivity, achieve quick wins and ensure alignment with business goals while efficiently managing resources. – Roman Vinogradov, Improvado
