The Art of Product Prioritization: SU-RICE: A Prioritization Framework For SaaS Products 1196688050

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The Art Of

Product Prioritization SU-RICE: A Prioritization Framework For SaaS Products

Anup Sheshadri

Copywrite © 2023 by Anup Sheshadri. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

For Tarun Upaday and Hitesh Sharma who guide & support my product philosophy.

Table of Contents Introduction Why Product Prioritization Is Important? The Intricacies of Product Decision Making The Dynamics of Product Life Cycle The Unique World of SaaS Products Introducing the SU-RICE Prioritization Framework Conclusion and What's Next

SU-RICE: A Prioritization Framework For SaaS Products The Limitations of the RICE Framework SU-RICE: A More Comprehensive Approach SU-RICE Scoring: How Does it Work? Trust, But Verify Template Wrapping Up

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Adapting SU-RICE Prioritization Through the Product Life Cycle 23 The Importance of the Product Life Cycle Why Should You Care? 1. Development Stage: The Birth of Your Product 2. Introduction Phase: Say Hello to the Market 3. Growth Stage: Scaling Up 4. Maturity: Defending Your Castle 5. Saturation: Time To Innovate 6. The Decline Stage: Survival Mode Wrapping Up

Resources About The Author

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Introduction Product prioritization is not just about choosing what to do next; it's about deciphering where value lies, understanding user needs, and charting a course for innovation and impact.

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In today's digital age, innovation moves at breakneck speed. Companies launch, scale, and pivot faster than ever before, and the key to this agility lies in their ability to build products that solve real-world problems for their users. As someone who has led the product and growth initiatives at Routespring—a fastest growing startup in the business travel management space and rated #1 easiest-to-use product on G2—I've had a front-row seat to the power of effective product prioritization. Navigating through the startup phase, especially one that is experiencing rapid growth, is both an exhilarating and overwhelming experience. A multitude of voices echo through the corridors of your organization—each with its distinct perspective and interests. Prospects tantalize with the promise of sales if only feature 'X' could be added; existing customers advocate passionately for improvements; internal teams, from sales to engineering, clamor for tweaks and changes that will make their lives easier; even competitors provide unsolicited advice through their own product evolutions. Amidst this cacophony, it becomes all too easy to lose focus. Resources—whether they be time, money, or manpower—are finite.

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Mistakes are costly, both in terms of missed opportunities and wasted efforts. And as you scramble to incorporate every piece of feedback and every brilliant idea that comes your way, the risk of dilution—of your product, your brand, and your mission—grows exponentially. As a product manager, your role is not merely a vessel through which ideas pass; it's to be the gatekeeper of your product's vision. Your job is to cut through the noise and distinguish between what needs immediate attention and what can wait. What will genuinely solve a business problem, and what is just a 'nice to have'. You are the person responsible for ensuring that your limited resources are laser-focused on creating solutions that serve your business goals while delivering undeniable value to your customers. The goal of this book is straightforward but critically important: to provide emerging product managers with a concrete, actionable framework for mastering the art of product prioritization. As you delve into the pages that follow, remember that prioritization isn't just a set of procedures; it's a skill that is honed over time, enriched by successes, failures, and everything in between. It's a balancing act between strategy and intuition, data and gut feeling, urgency and impact. This book is your guide to mastering that

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balance, enabling you to make decisions that resonate with your customers, energize your team, and align perfectly with your business goals.

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Why Product Prioritization Is Important? “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.” – Steve Jobs

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The craft of product management is complex and multifaceted. Product managers oversee the strategy, design, development, and market launch of a product. Central to these multifarious responsibilities is the crucial task of prioritization. For young product managers navigating the challenging terrain of product development, understanding the necessity of a robust prioritization framework can set them apart from the crowd.

The Intricacies of Product Decision Making As product managers, we're no strangers to the intricacies of decision making. More often than not, decisions aren’t black and white; they’re layered with varying shades of gray. With multiple stakeholders to consider, a plethora of features to potentially develop, and an ever-evolving market landscape, deciding which product features to prioritize can become an overwhelming task. product prioritization transcends simply ranking features. It's about understanding, assimilating, and sometimes, diplomatically countering the inputs and opinions of diverse stakeholders. The traditional conference room discussion often echoes with the voice of the most assertive, often clouding objective decision-making. This voice might push for features that aren't

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necessarily in alignment with the product's core objectives or its market strategy. The most dangerous pitfall? Falling into the trap of biased decision-making. Products shouldn't be built around biases. Their core purpose is to address and solve a tangible business challenge. Therefore, as guardians of product development, it becomes our duty to ensure that whatever is being built aligns seamlessly with a broader business strategy. Enter prioritization frameworks. These aren’t just tools; they’re vital instruments that empower product managers to make objective, data-driven decisions. Leveraging frameworks that quantify rankings, showcase them through comprehensive charts, and establish matrices rooted in customer feedback and overarching product strategy, can effectively "silence" subjective opinions. Instead, these frameworks echo the voice of what truly matters: strategic alignment and customer value.

The Dynamics of Product Life Cycle Products aren’t static; they evolve. Every product traverses through a lifecycle, moving through stages such as development, introduction, growth,

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and maturity, before potentially facing saturation and eventual decline. Each stage has its characteristics, challenges, and advantages.

Source: HubSpot

●

Development: This is the conceptual phase where market fit and feasibility are being tested. Prioritization here might focus on speed and innovation.

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Introduction: Your product is new to the market. The emphasis is often on features that will make a splash and attract early adopters.

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Growth: The product is picking up. Here, the balance might tilt towards scalability and features that broaden market appeal.

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Maturity: Market saturation is reached. Prioritization may focus on customer retention and perhaps incremental improvements or complementary features.

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Saturation: The product has peaked. At this stage, maintaining existing features to prevent decline becomes essential.

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Decline: Here, you're probably looking at phasing out the product or revamping it altogether.

Each of these stages necessitates a unique strategy. Depending on where your product is in this cycle, your strategy would adapt and evolve, making a one-size-fits-all approach impractical. For instance, a product in the development phase might prioritize foundational features, while one in the growth stage might prioritize scalability and expanded capabilities.

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The Unique World of SaaS Products SaaS products introduce additional layers of complexity to the product management equation. With a diverse array of user roles, ranging from decision-makers and product administrators to end-users, there's a kaleidoscope of perspectives to consider. ●

Decision-Makers: These are usually high-ranking officials in an organization who decide whether to buy your product. They are concerned with ROI, security, and the alignment with overall business goals.

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Product Admins: They are responsible for setting up and maintaining the product. Their priorities might include ease of administration, customization abilities, and integrations.

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End Users: These are the people who will be using your product day-to-day. They care about user experience, performance, and feature utility.

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Internal Users: These could be customer support agents, sales teams, or any other role within your company that interacts with the product to assist customers.

Imagine a scenario where the decision-maker, the product admin, and the end-user are the same individual. Or consider larger enterprise settings where roles are distinctly separate, with multiple stakeholders for each role. Add to this, the silent yet critical internal users who rely on the product to support customers. Each of these roles has its own set of requirements, expectations, and priorities, further muddying the waters of product decision-making. Moreover, in the SaaS ecosystem, feature requests bombard product managers from every direction. While customer feedback remains paramount, requests also emerge from potential prospects, competitors' actions, internal teams' insights, and broader market research. Managing this inundation and distilling it into a concise product backlog can quickly become an overwhelming task for even the most seasoned product manager.

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Introducing the SU-RICE Prioritization Framework Amid this intricate landscape, I present to you the SU-RICE prioritization framework – a refined iteration of the traditional RICE framework, meticulously crafted to measure the total business impact against the time invested. SU-RICE stands for: ●

S: Source

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U: User Persona

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R: Reach

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I: Impact

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C: Confidence

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E: Effort

Without diving too deep (stay tuned for the next segment on that), the SU-RICE framework is built on empirical foundations. It's not just about listing features; it's about understanding their business impact, gauging the required efforts, and aligning them with overarching company objectives.

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Conclusion and What's Next Product management, particularly in the vibrant SaaS industry, can often feel like navigating a storm. With countless voices, myriad requests, and ever-shifting market dynamics, the role of a product manager is anything but simple. However, with tools like the SU-RICE framework at your disposal, the chaos becomes manageable, decisions become clearer, and the path forward, distinctly visible. To the budding product managers reading this, remember that prioritization isn't just a task; it's an art. It’s the delicate balance between business objectives, customer value, and feasibility. And with the right tools and mindset, you can master this art. In the next chapter, we will dive deep into the mechanics of the SU-RICE framework, dissecting each component to provide you with a practical guide on its implementation.

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SU-RICE: A Prioritization Framework For SaaS Products "It’s a flexible tool that can adapt to your product’s specific needs at different stages of the life cycle."

(Source + User Persona) 𝘹 Reach 𝘹 Impact 𝘹 Confidence ÷ Effort

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Before we advance into the SU-RICE framework, let’s do a recap of the RICE framework. The RICE prioritization framework breaks down as follows: Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. Each of these factors allows product managers to evaluate and prioritize feature requests based on the potential user impact relative to the amount of work required. However, this framework comes with its own limitations.

The Limitations of the RICE Framework RICE is a widely used methodology to measure a feature’s impact per time worked. However, in the dynamic ecosystem of SaaS products, RICE falls short. Why? Because it doesn't necessarily align with the intricate demands of business or product strategy. Let's dissect these limitations further: ● No Strategic Alignment: The RICE model doesn't inherently sync with the strategic direction a company wants to go in. Whether you're focused on customer retention, market penetration, or revenue growth, RICE doesn't provide a mechanism to align features or tasks with these objectives.

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● Uniform Treatment: RICE treats all requests and ideas with the same weight. But, as you know, not all stakeholders or users contribute equally to the business. ● Lack of Persona-Specific Focus: Especially in SaaS environments, different user personas have different influences on your product and ultimately, your business. RICE doesn't allow for this differentiation.

SU-RICE: A More Comprehensive Approach Given these limitations, I have developed the SU-RICE framework, with "SU" standing for Source and User Persona. The goal is to measure the total business impact per time worked, more precisely and aligned with your strategic goals. Let’s unpack the two new elements:

1. Importance of Source As a product manager, you will definitely want to make sure all the voices are heard, but when it comes to making a business impact, you have to ruthlessly focus only on what’s most important. Believe me or not, you will get amazing ideas and feature requests from multiple sources. But depending on what

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you’re trying to optimize in the product, you will need to weigh one of them higher over the other. Case Study: Routespring

Source: HubSpot

At my company, Routespring—a growth stage business travel management software—the market share focus meant prioritizing customer acquisition.

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We found that not all demands are created equal. Prospects, whom we were wooing to become paying customers, presented feature requests that were crucial to acquisition. On the flip side, newly acquired customers had different demands aimed at retention. Also, it was crucial to keep an eye on competitors. Why were they winning in certain segments? Were there features they offered that we lacked? Thus, based on our strategy, we had to weigh sources differently (as below). Source

Weight

Prospect

6

Customer

4

Market/ Competitors

2

Internal

1

Depending on your strategy and operational focus, your source weights will differ. If customer retention is your current focus, then maybe current customer feedback gets more weightage. If you’re entering a new market, competitor analysis might take precedence. Defining these weights can be a

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bit of an art, but feel free to reach out to me for a consultation on how best to decide on these.

2. Importance of User Persona Why is User Persona important? As we discussed earlier, in a SaaS product there are different types of personas involved in using a product. Every person has a different sort of influence on the business. So it would make a completely different business case to build features for decision-makers and internal users. Case Study: Routespring (continued) At Routespring, we identified that the prospective client’s decision-makers (CFOs, Head of Finance, Head of Operations, etc.) and internal admins (Routespring’s CEO, Head of Growth, etc.) had a high level of influence on our business. The decision-makers were crucial in not just choosing our product over competitors but also in the overall user adoption within their organizations. On the other hand, other types of users were important but had less immediate influence on our business decisions. Based on this understanding, we used the below weights for each User Persona.

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User Persona

Weight

Decision-maker

20

Routespring admin

20

Prospect

15

Product admin

5

End-user

3

Routespring internal user

2

These might be very different in your case depending on how complex or simple your product is. In either case, it's vital to identify and weigh user personas according to their strategic importance in your business.

SU-RICE Scoring: How Does it Work? So, now you're probably wondering how to use the SU-RICE score. Don't worry; it's relatively straightforward. Here's a step-by-step guide:

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1. Identify Relevant Sources and User Personas: Start by listing all the potential sources and user personas that are relevant to your product and business strategy. 2. Assign Weights: Decide on the weight that each source and user persona should carry. This is a crucial step and should align with your overarching business goals. 3. Estimate RICE Factors: You'll still be using Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort level (from the traditional RICE framework). 4. Calculate SU-RICE Score: With the assigned weights and RICE estimates, you can put them into the SU-RICE formula to get a more holistic, strategy-aligned score. (Source + User Persona) 𝘹 Reach 𝘹 Impact 𝘹 Confidence ÷ Effort 5. Prioritize: Sort the list of features/tasks from highest to lowest SU-RICE score. This will clearly identify what you should be focusing on first. 6. Review and Iterate: Your first SU-RICE scoring isn't set in stone. As your strategy evolves, make sure to revisit and adjust your scoring parameters.

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Trust, But Verify It's important to remember that while frameworks provide structure, they don't replace human judgment. If you find some scores surprising or counter-intuitive, it's an opportunity to revisit your assumptions. Maybe there's something you didn't consider, or perhaps your gut feeling was off. It's always okay to iterate.

Template To make your transition into using SU-RICE easier, I've developed a spreadsheet template that you can find in the book's resource section. Feel free to duplicate or modify it according to your needs.

Wrapping Up In the next chapter, we'll delve into how the product life cycle stage influences source weights in SU-RICE scoring. This adds another layer of complexity but also accuracy in aligning your product features with your business strategy.

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Adapting SU-RICE Prioritization Through the Product Life Cycle

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By now, you should be familiar with the rudiments of the SU-RICE model, and how you can apply it to various product scenarios. Now it's time to dig deeper into the nuances. Specifically, we'll delve into how your product’s life cycle stage influences the sources you should consider and the weight you should assign to each of them. The information in this chapter emphasizes the importance of adapting your framework according to different life cycle stages, which can be pivotal for your product's success. So without further ado, let's jump right in!

The Importance of the Product Life Cycle To set the stage, it’s crucial to understand why the product life cycle is such a vital consideration. A product does not exist in isolation; it evolves over time. As popularly cited in HubSpot’s blog and other industry sources, a typical product goes through various phases—development, introduction, growth, maturity, saturation, and decline. Each of these stages requires its own business and product strategies.

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Source: HubSpot

Why Should You Care? The life cycle stage will often dictate the challenges you're facing, the type of data you need, and the stakeholders whose input you should most value. Tailoring your prioritization process according to the product life cycle helps align your focus and resources effectively, making you more adaptive and smarter in your decision-making.

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1. Development Stage: The Birth of Your Product

At this initial stage, your team’s primary focus is validating the market potential of the founders’ ambitious, "crazy wild ideas." You'll be knee-deep in market research, user interviews, surveys, and possibly even beta testing. If we assume the participants in the research and beta testing are also your potential users in the future, their voice will have significant importance. Also, let’s not forget the voice of the founders—after all, this product is being

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conceived with their domain expertise. Based on this understanding, below are the suggested sources to consider and their weights in the development stage of the product. Source

Weight

Market research

6

Beta users

4

Founders

2

Internal

1

Why These Weights? As you may notice, I have weighed market research higher than beta users. This is because you will be getting many useful ideas from research which may not necessarily be built into your beta product. So feedback from beta users may not necessarily give a full picture of the market. Also, although founders bring in great insights from their domain expertise, their opinions may be biased based on their personal experiences and may not be aligned with the larger market. But again, these are just suggestive weights—your situation and strategy might differ from this example.

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2. Introduction Phase: Say Hello to the Market

Congratulations, your product is ready to meet the world. Your main goal now switches to activating various customer acquisition channels. At this stage, you're not just collecting feedback; you're actively seeking to convert potential customers. Since this is still an early stage for the product, it is very likely that your product may not be able to address all the problems that prospects have. In order to win over the prospects, you will need to listen to

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them and quickly turn around the product to have them become your paying customers. Below is an example of the sources to consider and their suggested weights. Source

Weight

Prospect

6

Early customers

4

Founders

2

Market analysts

1

Why These Weights? As you try to acquire customers, understanding the barriers to conversion becomes a priority, making Prospects the most valuable source of insights. Early Customers, who have crossed that barrier, provide the next level of useful feedback. Founders and Market Analysts offer broader perspectives but are secondary to real-time market interactions.

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3. Growth Stage: Scaling Up

In the growth stage, you’re looking to expand your market share. Your focus should be on optimizing both customer acquisition and retention. Similar to the introduction stage, here as well we will get tons of demands from the prospects that we are dealing with in the current times, and we want to make sure that we hear those voices and implement the changes on the product to win them over as paying customers. At the same time, we have newly

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acquired customers, and they are also sharing some feedback, and we don’t want to disappoint them. So we may want to consider implementing some of the changes to keep them satisfied and happy so that they don’t switch over to any other competing products. On the other hand, because we are working on expanding the market share, we’re also watchful of the competition—it might be worthwhile to consider some of the features that competition brings into the market just to stay competitive and make sure that we are still able to increase our market share. Here’s an example to consider: Source

Weight

Prospect

6

Customers

4

Market/ Competitors

2

Internal (customer support, sales…)

1

Why These Weights? In growth, balance becomes key. You can’t afford to focus too heavily on any one aspect of your business. Prospects and Current Customers both are

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pivotal for continued growth, while Competitive Analysis and Internal Teams provide the context and real-world feedback loop necessary for making informed decisions.

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4. Maturity: Defending Your Castle As your product matures, your priorities will naturally shift towards optimizing customer retention and increasing operational efficiencies. During your growth stage, you probably acquired many new customers without considering improving the productivity of your internal teams to support customers. Now may be the time you should consider improving the productivity of your customer support team. So in this stage, the customers and internal teams become a priority, with some importance to prospects. Source

Weight

Customers

6

Internal

4

Prospects

1

Why These Weights? Customer retention becomes increasingly more valuable and cost-effective than acquisition as your product matures. Internal teams play a larger role

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because of the scale of operations. New prospects, while still valued, contribute less to immediate business goals.

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5. Saturation: Time To Innovate

In the saturation stage, the focus is on mitigating the competitive risks in the market. For that you need to innovate and optimize your competitive positioning. So you will be closely watching your competition as well as feedback from customers. If your product is in this stage, below weights might work for you.

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Weight

Market/ Competitors

6

Customers

4

Internal

2

Prospects

1

Why These Weights? As your product saturates, you need to explore what more you can do to defend your market share. There could be new players who might be bringing new innovative solutions to the market and compete against your long standing legacy. This will force you to watch the market closely and continuously innovate.

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6. The Decline Stage: Survival Mode

As the product comes to the decline stage, survival is the question. Your priority shifts to preventing your customers from leaving you. So your biggest focus becomes the demands from the customers and then the competition. Below are the weights that I suggest for the decline stage.

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Weight

Customers

6

Market/ Competitors

4

Internal

1

Why These Weights? In survival mode, the focus becomes internal. Current customers and internal efficiency are your lifeblood. Understanding competitors provides a view into what you could be doing better to retain customers.

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Wrapping Up The SU-RICE framework is not a static entity. It’s a flexible tool that can adapt to your product’s specific needs at different stages of the life cycle. Tailoring your approach as your product evolves can make the difference between a product that flourishes and one that flounders. As you navigate through the challenges and opportunities of product management, feel free to experiment with these weights. Your situation and strategy might call for unique adaptations that deviate from these examples. Don't forget, you can download the SU-RICE framework spreadsheet template from the link provided and customize it to suit your needs.

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Resources 1. RICE Prioritization Framework: https://www.intercom.com/blog/rice-simple-prioritization-for-produc t-managers/ 2. SU-RICE Prioritization Framework spreadsheet template: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pyUNqgjz4Mv6h0FBFZiM Ac1lHScUcwWelfS0J2lYNFY/edit#gid=1196688050

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About The Author Anup Sheshadri is a business leader and the Head of Product at Routespring, one of the fastest growing business travel management startups in the USA. He is also an author of a blog Product Management With Chai (https://blog.pmwithchai.com/). Anup is a frequent speaker at schools and universities where he talks about entrepreneurship, product management and leadership.