< Back to Guru Views

MoSCoW Prioritization

Understand the relative importance of your items by categorizing each according to ‘must haves’, ‘should haves’, ‘could haves’ and ‘will not have right nows’.

Try this view

Book a demo

Home > Guru View > Prioritization > MoSCoW Prioritization

Assign % of resource per category

Quantify different levels of priority

Achieve cross team buy-in

Gain alignment on priorities

Prioritize According to Available Resources

Divide your items into 4 different categories — ‘must haves’, ‘should haves’, ‘could haves’ and ‘won’t have right nows’ . ‘Must haves’ are the minimum usable subset required for the product to be launched. ‘Should haves’ are not vital to the success of the product , but can have a huge impact on it. ‘Could haves’ are items that you’d like to see in the product, but have less of an impact than ‘Should haves’. ‘Will not have right nows’ are items that are not essential, and without which the product will still be strong. First priority is to handle all of the ‘must haves’. If you still have capacity, start working on the ‘could haves’ and then ‘should haves’; ‘could haves’ and ‘should haves’ should be removed if there’s not enough time or resources.

Why should I use MoSCoW prioritization?

Use MoSCoW prioritization when the deadline is fixed and there’s only time to develop the more important requirements. The plain English of the MoSCoW phrasing is more effective at helping stakeholders understand the impact of prioritization than more simpler options like High, Medium and Low.

How should I use MoSCoW prioritization?

Divvy up all of your prospective items into 4 categories — ‘must haves’, ‘should haves’, ‘could haves’ and ‘wont have right nows’. Those items considered critical or essential to the products’ success are ‘must haves’ These are the first items that should be prioritized. Items that aren’t essential but can strongly impact the product are should haves’, and are next in line to be developed. ‘Could haves’ are less important than ‘should haves’, but are still important, while ‘won’t have right nows’ are items that can be pushed off for the time being.

Who are the relevant stakeholders for this view?

MoSCoW prioritization method is often used to help key stakeholders like customers, executives and other leaders, understand the relative importance of items in a given release.

What outcomes should I expect when using this view?

Get a clear understanding of the relative importance of each of your items. Offer your team greater clarity regarding where they should invest their efforts so that they can ignore those items that aren’t prioritized.

What’s the origin of MoSCoW prioritization?

Dai Clegg — a software development expert — created MoSCoW prioritization method while working at Oracle, after which it was donated to the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DDSM). It was originally conceived as a prioritization methodology for initiatives within releases with strict deadlines.

Try this view

Join thousands of product managers
who use and love craft.io

COMING SOON

Product teams love craft.io

“craft.io makes it so easy to tie everything we do to OKRs and other metrics that it’s proving to be one of the most valuable tools in Kingfisher’s move to a product-led culture.”

Matt Jackson

Group Product Manager, Kingfisher

“The bar for what makes a great product gets higher every year. craft.io is a testament to that. We expect them to keep defining what it means to be at the cutting edge of product, not only in 2023 but also in the years to come.”

SC Moatti

Founding CEO, Products That Count

“Now that we have a software solution designed specifically for product management, our agile teams are able to connect OKRs directly to items on their roadmaps and quickly weigh competing items by applying the prioritization models built right into craft.io.”

Sagar Medandarao

Product Management CoE, Fannie Mae

"craft.io is the first solution I’ve ever used that lets me do just about all of my product work in one environment. That saves me hours every week.”

Jack Yulzari

Product Team Manager, AI21 labs

“Of all the benefits we’re receiving from craft.io, I think the most significant is being able to view, analyze, and share the same data in many different ways.”

Petra Angeli

VP of Products, Acolad

“... we extended the product delivery with the product discovery part, driven by insight from customers in one tool!!”

Marcin Jedrzejczak

Lead Product Manager, SAP

"Everything on one place".

Soledad Rivero

Scrum Master, Kimberly-Clark

“The full package for road mapping, feedback gathering tool that will truly enable any PM.”

Stephan Becker

Sr Product Manager, Radicle Balance

"At SaaS Awards, we were most impressed with craft.io's Guru layer, which provides teams with easy access to hundreds of best-practice templates and views."

Annabelle Whittall

Lead Judge, SaaS Awards

"craft.io offers the possibility to set up multiple views that adjust to your needs: roadmap prioritization, capacity planning, or simply demand intaking."

Victoria Pacialeo

Product Owner eCommerce, Kimberly-Clark

“This tool is a one-stop-shop for product management. craft.io helped us stay on top of our product management work, but it has also helped us learn how to be a better product team.”

Yonatan Schreiber

CEO & Co-Founder, blings.io

“With craft.io, we have an always-updated roadmap and a single source of truth that anyone in the company can view. I can’t overstate how valuable that is.”

Ventsi Tasev

Group Product Manager, quickbase

“You are pro-grade product managers. Delivering better outcomes and driving continuous improvement.”

Rusty Zaspel

Transformation Champion & Senior Marketing Leader, Kimberly-Clark

"…the best combination of stakeholder friendly and team friendly features on the market."

Matt Weghorst

VP of Engineering, Social Native

craft.io is the perfect product for product managers. It makes it very easy to manage your products all the way from Strategy to detailed implementation lifecycles.

Abhijit Dev

Lead Product Manager, IMImobile, Cornell University

Product Management, easier. It's also a clearly modern web app, unlike most of its competitors. You can easily create stories and issues out of notes.

Alexander Holley

Product Owner, Artos Systems

craft.io supports the entire product management life cycle with a rich and easy to use interface. The kanban boards are well designed and implemented.

Paul Davis

Product Manager, Cornell University, Cisco