In this presentation, I share how we prioritize our backlog while developing Hygger. The process consists of the following blocks: 1) we formulate goals 2) then choose the metrics to track the movement towards these goals 3) we collect ideas from different sources 4) organize them into a clear structure 5) prioritize ideas using Lean Prioritization (or Value/Cost or Value/Effort) 6) do features scoring 7) write tasks for the features And that's it! The features can be taken to work as needed.

1. What’s next?
The Art of Prioritization
Alexander Sergeev
Hygger CEO & Founder

2. 1997-2002
BSU, programmer
2003-2005
SPSU, engineering psychologist
2016 – now
CEO & Founder, Hygger.io – product management tool
2017 – now
Founding Partner, Cuspy.vc – startup studio

3. “Managing the product”- means deciding what we do
to the product and then making it happen.
Ryan Singer - Product Strategy at Basecamp

4. Distractions literally kill startups. Building stuff for
the sake of building it is startup suicide. So having
a rigorous and honest prioritization process for
feature development is critical to controlling
distraction and eliminating waste.
Ben Yoskowitz – the author of Lean Analytics, investor, 500 startups
mentor

5. The Next Feature Fallacy: the fallacy that the next
feature you add will suddenly make people want
to use the entire product.
Joshua Porter - HubSpot UX director

6. 3 types of product managers
• Backlog administrator – when CEO is responsible for decisions
• Roadmap administrator – when stakeholders are responsible
for decisions
• Product manager – decisions are made by a product manager

7. Defining priorities is the main skill of product managers
Wanna grok prioritization? Let’s move on

8. Our process
• Formulate the company's goals for 2 months
• Choose metrics according to the goals
• Gather and organize ideas
• Apply Lean prioritization
• Arrange features scoring
• Detail features and add to the queue

9. Our current goals
• Increase conversion trial-to-paid
• Separate from competitors

10. Our metrics
Key metrics
• trial-to-paid conversion
Additional metrics
• conversion of visitors into registrations
• activations (aka AHA moment)
• retention 1d

11. Where do we get ideas?
• Customer support (Intercom, Zendesk)
• Inspectlet (or AppSee for mobile)
• NPS (How likely are you to recommend us to your friends and colleagues?, Wootric, Satismeter)
• Product analytics (Amplitude)
• The analysis of competitors (Feedly)
• Interviews (cust dev, temi.com, rev.com)
• Experiments and A/B testing
• Reviews (App Store, Google Play, Capterra) - appfollow.io or appannie.com
• UX testing
• Surveys

12. Backlog structuring
• by components (backend, frontend, API, mobile apps)
• according to the field of application (UX, marketing, tech debts, bugs)
• flag the most strategic and important
• link insights and features to understand features relevance

13. Lean Prioritization

14. What to take further into the work?
• Quick Wins – “low-hanging fruits”
• Big Bets – it’s better to break them down into small tasks and re-estimate them.
• Maybes – fill pauses with them between large features
• Time sinks – skip them

15. What is value about?
The features get Value if they:
• Improve metrics of trial-to-paid conversion (metrics movers)

16. What is value about?
Features get Value if they:
• Improve metrics of trial-to-paid conversion (metrics movers)
• Assist to acquire new users (aha moment)
• 1000 users visit your homepage to check out your product
• 20% sign up
• 80% finish onboarding
• 40% visit the next day after signup
• 20% visit the next week after signup
• 10% visit after 30 days after signup
• After 30 days, 20 users (out of 1000!) are DAUs

17. What is value about?
Features get Value if they:
• Improve metrics of trial-to-paid conversion (metrics movers)
• Assist to acquire new users (aha moment)
• Help to retain current users

18. What is value about?
Features get Value if they:
• Improve metrics of trial-to-paid conversion (metrics movers)
• Assist to acquire new users (aha moment)
• Help to retain current users
• Add value to the product and separate us from competitors

19. Planning poker
• Meet altogether
• A leader takes an idea and the group discusses it
• Each participant evaluates the idea according to the Fibonacci sequence
• Then the Leader opens all the cards
• People who put max and min explain their decision
• The team tries to find consensus
• Next feature

20. Prioritization techniques
Prioritization techniques types
• External & Quantitative – Kano model
• External & Qualitative – Story Mapping
• Internal & Quantitative – Lean Prioritization
• Internal & Qualitative - KJ
Daniel Zacarias (foldingburritos.com)

21. Features scoring

22. Criteria for scoring. Part 1
• Target metrics
• Increases income
• Helps to acquire new customers
• Helps to retain current customers
• Value for users
• Strategic value – does not provide now, but later will help with it
• Is it possible to solve the task within available functionality
• Strong innovation
• Many competitors have it

23. Criteria for scoring. Point 2
• Is needed for many users
• How often is needed
• Time and cost of development
• Time and cost of implementation
• Confidence in success
• Expectation according to Kano
• Desired according to Kano
• Delighting according to Kano - wow-effect, value for PR
• Improves code (facilitate refinement and support)
• pirate metrics

24. Results
• The degree of influence of intuition in decision-making has been
decreased

25. Results
• The degree of influence of intuition in decision-making has been
decreased
• Return HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion)

26. Results
• The degree of influence of intuition in decision-making has been
decreased
• Return HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion)
• Strategic indicators are growing steadily

27. Results
• The degree of influence of intuition in decision-making has been
decreased
• Return HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion)
• Strategic indicators are growing steadily
• Our customers get more value per unit of time

28. Results
• The degree of influence of intuition in decision-making has been
decreased
• Return HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion)
• Strategic indicators are growing steadily
• Our customers get more value per unit of time
• The team understands WHY we are creating specific features

29. Results
• The degree of influence of intuition in decision-making has been
decreased
• Return HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion)
• Strategic indicators are growing steadily
• Our customers get more value per unit of time
• The team understands WHY we are creating specific features
• Minor ideas are being hide and do not irritate. Anyway, 80% of ideas will
never be realized.

30. Thanks for your attention!
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