How to Prioritize Features with the RICE Scoring Model

Updated: 

02, 2023

One of the most popular feature prioritization models is the RICE Scoring Model. The Rice scoring formula enables you to take your SaaS Feature Marketing strategy to a whole new level. If you wanna know who has the best rice scoring model template for your SaaS product, click here and go straight to the end of the post.

What is Feature Marketing?

Feature marketing is a Software/SaaS product marketing strategy that focuses on updating existing features or adding new features to an existing product as part of a company’s efforts to retain customers or attract new customers.

How do we manage SaaS Feature Marketing strategy properly?

Deciding – Feature Prioritization.

Developing

Announcing – For a post on SaaS Feature Marketing strategy , click here

The RICE Scoring Model for Feature Prioritization

Feature prioritization Effort Impact Model SaaS Feature Prioritization Effort Impact Matrix RIce Model

What is the Rice Scoring Model?

RICE framework is a model used by managers to prioritize a variety of areas such as projects, products, tasks, initiatives, and, of course, features. It was invented by Interom, which, thanks to its genius ability for self-marketing, managed to penetrate the model into every possible startup discourse. The model is built from four components:

  1. Reach: The number of users (customers) or transactions that will be Impacted by the new feature in a given period (month, quarter, year).
  2. Impact: Quantify the impact of the new feature according to a rating scale from 0.25 to 3, where 3 has a massive impact. For example, if we want to add an extra payment option. Will it significantly affect the conversion rate? Can you rate the impact from 0.25 to 3?
  3. Confidence: Tricky. How confident are you in the numbers you entered in the Reach and Impact components? This number is in percentages, between 0% and 100%. Do you have additional information, such as surveys, feedback, and open tickets, to back up the answer?
  4. Effort: How much time will the development of the feature require from the teams? For example, if we need one person per month for design and one person per month for development. So the number is 2 people/month. In other words, if you estimate a feature development will take a total of 2 people-months, your effort score will be 2
Feature prioritization 
Effort Impact Model 
SaaS Feature Prioritization 
Effort Impact Matrix Prioritization RICE

Now all the features are nicely arranged, and you can see that features that are difficult to quantify or that we are less sure of their impact are quickly rejected, and features with a high RICE score are given priority.

Is it scientific – no! Does it help with decision-making – yes. For the full method, click here

Here are 2 options for Rice Scoring Model templates

1. Airfocus‘s RICE Model template for Feature Prioritization

For those interested in using the RICE scoring model for feature prioritization, airfocus, a German SaaS company, offers a product management and project management platform that includes templates for feature prioritization, one of which is the RICE model.

Key Features:

  • 14-day free trial!
  • User-friendly Interface.
  • Collect information and feedback from chats, emails, and support in one place.
  • User feedback analysis.
  • Creating and Sharing roadmaps and views.
  • Ready-made templates for Prioritization, Roadmap and Product management.
  • Internal and external portal.
  • Integration with Online tools such as Slack, Trello, Asana, Zapier.
  • Price starts at $19 month.

2. Craft.io‘s RICE Model template for Feature Prioritization

For those interested in using the RICE scoring model for feature prioritization, craft.io, an Israeli SaaS company, offers a product management platform that includes models for feature prioritization, one of which is the RICE model.

Key Features:

  • 14-day free trial!
  • User-friendly Interface.
  • Creating roadmaps for project management.
  • Building and sharing roadmap strategy.
  • Feedback management and analysis
  • Integration with Online tools such as Slack, Jira, Miro, Salesforce.
  • Guru – Templates for Prioritization, Roadmap and Product management.
  • Price starts at $39 month.

How to choose the perfect partner, sorry, the best feature to develop first.

  1. Think about the customer – or rather, your core customer group. Who will benefit the most from the new features?
  2.  You can’t please everyone. Start by pleasing many in one go.
  3.  Be sure to estimate the effort required to develop each feature correctly. Don’t be shy to ask.
  4.  Don’t fall for your product. We do not develop products for ourselves.
  5.  Wrong prioritization can end the business; yes, it happens a lot. Ask your friends who recently changed their status on LinkedIn.

Just some of the topics we covered in this post: Feature Prioritization, SaaS Feature Marketing, Rice Scoring Model, rice score prioritization, rice scoring model template, Product Manager, Prioritize Features, Project Manager, Rice Scoring Formula .

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