PM Recap — Priority Sliders
In today’s remote-first world, how can product managers bring transparency to their decision making process and elicit the whole squad’s views on what to prioritize? By whole squad, I mean the autonomous cross-functional team consisting of product, design, and engineering functions along with any business stakeholder who may be closer to the problem space than the PM. News flash: you don’t need to be in the office!
Exercises which promote healthy discussion on a set of priorities for an upcoming piece of work, whether its an entirely new product or well-defined feature to be implemented, are GOLDEN for team alignment and consensus building.
Enter: Priority Sliders. See below for the activity breakdown, how to run the activity with your squad, and why it’s important.
What is Priority Sliders?
Priority Sliders is an exercise where squad members first individually rank a finite set of priorities, followed by a group discussion led by the product manager applying the final prioritization ranking.
The set of priorities can be product attributes, topics, dimensions, or themes related to the upcoming piece of work the squad will embark on. In my last project, I used the following dimensions :
- Data gathering and insights
- Security
- Automation
- Test Completeness
- Functional Completeness
- Learning
- Operational readiness
- Experience Design
How to run Priority Sliders?
For in-person sessions, you will need: a whiteboard, sticky notes, and markers. For remote sessions, any digital collaboration tool where people can view and interact with content in near-real time such as MIRO will do.
Step 1: Define the relevant dimensions to be used for the activity
Step 2: Describe those dimensions to the whole squad so that everyone understands before formulating their opinion.
Step 3: Give the team 5–10 minutes for individual ranking. Optionally make the individual ranking visible to the group or anonymous depending on team dynamics.
Step 4: Review each slider individually as a team, having a discussion about alignment. Drive toward an agree-upon spot on the scale and annotate that with a different color sticky. —for more information check out — Open Practice Library
Note that no two dimensions can have the same priority ranking. Everything cannot be the highest priority!
Why is it important?
Good product managers frequently run exercises which focus on perspective sharing and making each member of their squad feel heard.
Priority Sliders help guide your decision making as the product evolves.
The output of Priority Sliders can also serve as supporting documentation for business stakeholders when inquiries on product development come in.
The exercise is not limited to product development. Can you think of ways to apply this framework to your own personal life goals?
Thanks,
Erik Hencier
