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Mastering Scope Prioritization Tools for Your PMP Exam: The Pet Buddy App Example
If you’re preparing for the PMP exam, understanding scope prioritization tools is essential. In this article, we’ll walk through six critical tools from the PMBOK guide, using a real-world project example: the creation of the Pet Buddy mobile app. This app aims to be the “Uber for pet stays,” connecting pet owners with reliable pet sitters for both short-term and long-term care. Let’s dive into how the project team – led by Billy, with business owner Samantha – uses these tools to shape the app’s development.
1. Prioritization Matrix (Value/Effort)
A simple yet powerful tool, the prioritization matrix helps the team rank features by cost and benefit on a scale of 1 to 10. It could also rank them by Value over Effort. Features with high benefits and low costs are tackled first, while high-cost, low-benefit features move to the bottom of the list. For example, user profiles might score high in benefit and low in cost, making them a priority.
2. MoSCoW Method
MoSCoW stands for Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, and Won’t Have. The team sorts features into these categories to clarify priorities. Samantha works with stakeholders to decide that features like booking and scheduling are Must Haves, while dog-sitting add-ons might be Could Haves. To avoid endless must-haves (which happens in the real world), they can put a “work in progress” limit each for each category – five items for example.
3. Trade-Off Sliders
The team uses trade-off sliders to decide what’s most fixed and most flexible on the project. For instance, they decide that meeting the project timeline is a must, while scope is flexible. This helps guide decisions when conflicts arise between features.
4. Kano Analysis
Kano analysis categorizes features as Must-Have, Satisfying, or Delighting. It’s based on Customer Satisfaction, but over the feature’s lifecycle. Electric Windows in your car were “Delighters” in the 80s and 90s, but over time have become “Must Have” features – we won’t even consider a car if it has manual winding windows.
In Pet Buddy for example, payment processing is a Must-Have, while social features might start as Delighters but eventually become standard expectations over time. This helps the team decide when to introduce specific features.
5. Multi-Criteria Decision Chart
When facing complex decisions with multiple stakeholders, the team uses this chart to rank features across various criteria that they decide upon (e.g., customer satisfaction, ease of development, marketing value). This is extremely useful when there are complex competing needs and stakeholders.
By averaging scores of the criteria they choose, they identify the highest-priority features, like payment processing, while deprioritizing lower-scoring items.
6. Cost of Delay
The cost of delay method estimates the weekly profit lost if a feature is delayed. For example, if user profiles would bring in $6,500 per week and take 2 weeks to build, the cost of delay is $3,250 per week – we divide the expected profit by the time it takes to deliver. Then we prioritize the highest to the lowest – the team uses this metric to prioritize high-value, fast-to-deliver features.
7. Multi-Voting
This simple yet powerful technique lets stakeholders vote on features using points, dots, or even Monopoly money. Each person distributes their votes across different features – they can spread votes evenly or place all of them on a single, high-priority item. The features with the most votes rise to the top of the list. It’s an effective, collaborative way to make collective decisions and balance competing priorities within the team.
Final Thoughts
By leveraging these tools, the Pet Buddy team systematically prioritizes features, balances stakeholder needs, and optimizes delivery. Whether you’re studying for your PMP exam or managing your own project, mastering these techniques will help you drive better outcomes and build products that truly meet user needs.
Want to dive deeper into these tools? Stay tuned for our next video, where we’ll apply them live in a project planning session!
See more Project Tool articles:
- 6 Must-Know Project Quality Tools
- 4 Project Tools For Managing Your Team
- How to Make a Lean A3 – Project on a Page
- 10 Must-Know Project Initiation Documents
- How to Make a Sprint Burndown Chart in Excel
- How to Make a Customer Journey Map in Excel
- 6 Essential Tools To Manage Your Project Stakeholders
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