MoSCoW Prioritization

When to use the MosCoW Priorization Method?

"When everything matters, nothing matters."

Whether it's about features of a product or measures in the cause of the digital transformation of an organization, sooner or later, these questions will almost certainly come up:

🤔 Is the idea good?

😟 Is the idea worth implementing?

😥 Should we prioritize the idea for immediate implementation or rather for later?

If you ask these questions as a team as well and get caught up in discussions while searching for answers, then you should try the following method.

How does the MoSCoW Method work?

The MoSCoW method is a prioritization framework that can be applied to any type of situation or project. However, it works best when a larger number of tasks and requirements should be prioritized in a group with all stakeholders.

The core objective of the process is to classify ideas or tasks into four areas: "Must", "Should", "Could", "Won't". "Must" has the highest priority and "Won't" has the lowest.

To decide which of the four areas to categorize an idea into, use the following definitions:

• Must: Must have and absolutely necessary.

• Should-Have: Should be implemented if all the must-requirements can still be met

• Could-Have: Can be implemented if the fulfillment of higher-level requirements is not affected

• Won't-Have: Will be penciled in for the future, but not implemented for now.

Benefits of this method

• It is clear to all stakeholders which activities are critical to the success of the project.

• The expectations of the project team and stakeholders are aligned.

• It is easier to identify activities that can be neglected if deadlines are in danger or resource bottlenecks occur.

• Unlike prioritization with numbers ("What does 2 mean again??"), words create more clarity about how important a requirement is.

• The method is simple to implement: List goals and assign one of the categories - done!

We hope the matrix will be useful to you in your next project.