ASSOCIATION develop a range of products and services for their members—from education, certification, standards, and events, to networking programs —sometimes too many to handle. Prioritization on which and where to start could pose a challenge.
A prioritization tool that product managers use and might be useful for associations is RICE, which stands for reach, impact, confidence and effort. I adapted Sean McBride’s article on “RICE: Simple Prioritization for Product Managers” in the context of associations, as follows:
Reach measures the number of people impacted by your product per period of time. This could be members per quarter or product transactions per month. Whenever possible, use real measurements from product metrics instead of pulling numbers from nowhere. For example, if 100 members are reached in a quarter and 30 percent signs up, the reach is 100 times 30 percent or 30 members per quarter.
Impact estimates the effect of the product on your members. As it is difficult to measure impact precisely, you may use a multiple-choice scale —e.g., 3 for “massive impact,” 2 for “high,” 1 for “medium,” 0.5 for “low,” and 0.25 for “minimal.” Choosing an impact number may be subjective and seem unscientific but the alternative would be simply gut feel.
Confidence factors in your level of confidence about your estimates. If you think a product could have huge impact but you don’t have data to back it up, confidence lets you control that. You can use another multiple-choice scale such as 100 percent for “high confidence,” 80 percent for “medium,” and 50 percent for “low.” Anything below that is a long shot. So, be honest with yourself: how much support do you really have for your estimates?
Effort approximates the number of “person-months”—the work that one person can do in a month. There are many unknowns here so you may keep estimates rough by sticking to whole numbers. Unlike the other positive factors, more effort is not a good thing so it divides the total impact. For example, the project will take about a week of planning, 1-2 weeks of design, and 2-4 weeks of pilot testing time, which you may give an effort score of 2 person-months and so on.
To compute your RICE score: RICE Score = Reach X Impact X Confidence divided by Effort. The higher the score, the better things are for you.
However, RICE scores shouldn’t be used as a hard-and-fast rule. But with a scoring system in place, you can clearly identify when you’re making these trade-offs. Give RICE a try in your association’s product prioritization process.
Octavio Peralta is currently the executive director of the UN Global Compact Network Philippines and founder and volunteer CEO of the Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives, the “association of associations.” E-mail: bobby@pcaae.org