Scrum is a framework. Hence, Scrum defines the elements of its framework and their roles and accountabilities. But it does not tell the methods to implement the framework. Scrum defines a role called Product Owner. As per Scrum, the accountabilities of a Product Owner are ordering, prioritizing and communicating the product backlogs to the Scrum team. A Product Owner orders the product backlogs to maximize the value of a product. However, Scrum does not define either any method to maximize the value of a product or any method to order the product backlogs. Hence, in this article, we explore different methods to prioritize product backlogs.

What are the values of a product?

Any product can have one or more of the following values:

1. Financial value
2. Feature or functional value
3. Psychological value

How to prioritize product backlogs?

A Product Owner can order and prioritize the product backlogs in several ways. Two Key methods are explained in this article.

Method 1: Maximize value and minimize effort. The product backlogs are prioritized, which give higher value to a product with minimum effort. Values are scaled between 1-5 and efforts are scaled between 1-5. The ratio VALUE / EFFORT is calculated and, the product backlogs are ordered based ratio.

Method 2: – Use RICE framework. RICE framework is a very well-known framework to prioritize the product backlogs. RICE framework was modelled by a software company called Intercomm. The variables used in RICE framework are reach, impact, confidence and effort. The values are scaled from 0.25 to 3. A detailed article from Intercomm is available at:

RICE Prioritization Framework for Product Managers [+Examples] (intercom.com)

A popular tool used in Project management is called Jira from Atlassian. The Jira tool has also applications which implements the RICE framework. However, the sales of the values (reach, impact, confidence and effort) are different in Jira. A detailed article is available at:

Priority board for Jira RICE, ICE, WSJF | Atlassian Marketplace