How many of your prioritization meetings are actually planning meetings?
When most of the debate is around effort and capacity, you are not prioritizing. You are planning. Useful, but different. Yet many still confuse the two.
And ICE or RICE frameworks only half help. The impact is linked to the problem you're solving, and effort to the solution you're delivering. Unless you have a firm grasp of the problem space — which is rarely the case — the common bias is to focus entirely on the solution. And that's how you end up planning instead of prioritizing.
Here is a 2-step approach to reconcile prioritization and planning:
Step 1 — Qualify the impact, at the problem level.
Is this the right problem to solve? What is the impact for our customers and our business if we solve it? How confident are we that we can deliver that impact?
That's Impact and Confidence, assessed in the problem space, with impact as a lagging business indicator. And if confidence is low, at least you know: you're operating with a high level of risk.
This runs continuously through bi-weekly rituals with CS, PS and Sales. Qualified does not mean it lands on the next roadmap. It means the problem is worth looking at.
Step 2 — Plan the effort, at the solution level.
What is the minimum viable solution to drive the impact we want? How will we know we are on track?
That's Effort, assessed in the solution space, with the success metric as a leading product indicator.
This runs every quarter. Not because we are slow — because it gives the rest of the company visibility and predictability over a period where our confidence level stays healthy.
None of this is set in stone. Teams must remain agile: continuous qualification will lead to re-planning initiatives from time to time. But this must remain the exception, not the rule.
Why this approach changes the game:
1/ It anchors prioritization in the problem space. The conversation becomes the value of solving the problem, not the scope of the solution. The who and the why stay central and other departments can engage with that conversation.
2/ It opens up the solution space. Because the initiative is anchored in the problem, if one solution does not work, you can safely explore another without losing the plot. The first solution becomes a hypothesis, not a commitment.
These two steps are exactly what your AI can handle within your Product Management harness: agents pre-qualify incoming problems according to your criteria, drafts arrive already scored for impact and confidence, and your time is spent on making decisions. This is the harness I help teams implement.
And this only sticks if you have access to your clients and your management expresses requirements as problems, not solutions (see my previous article).
If this resonates, let's talk!