Incorporating Learning and Expected Cost of Change in Prioritizing Features on Agile Projects

Very little has been written to date on how to prioritize and sequence the development of new features and capabilities on an agile software development project. Agile product managers have been advised to prioritize based on “business value.” While this seems an appropriate goal, it is vague and provides little specific guidance. Our approach to optimizing “business value” uses tactics to minimize costs and maximize benefits through strategic learning. In order to provide specific and actionable advice to agile product managers, we present two guidelines. These guidelines are meant to provide a set of considerations and a process by which an agile product manager can achieve the goal of optimizing “business value” while recognizing that different product managers will vary in their notions of what “business value” is.