What is weighted scoring?

Weighted scoring is a method of prioritizing projects by assigning a numeric value to each task according to the cost-benefit (or effort-to-value) analysis. Initiatives are rated using this framework based on a set of criteria.

The requirements are sorted according to their final ratings based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Why the Weighted Scoring method is essential for my business

Making decisions is never simple, especially when many people are involved. Furthermore, large teams are virtually always the norm for product development.

Product teams must first understand their customers to prioritize their roadmap and make sensible, data-driven judgments about what they should do first.

Simply Put,This prioritization methodology will assist you in determining the order in which you should prioritize features and other projects on your product roadmap.

Benefits of using the Weighted Scoring matrix

When it comes to prioritization, the weighted scoring methodology is hugely beneficial.
This tool was created to assist in resolving the issue of group decision-making and roadmap prioritizing in a way that is both objective and fair.

Because the framework is based on a cost-benefit analysis of the essential criteria for the project, the final priorities are well-reasoned by the framework’s designers.
Whatever your role on the development team, whether you’re a product owner, product manager, or another important stakeholder, you’ll already understand the importance of a well-prioritized backlog.

However, there are other reasons to use weighted scoring to prioritize your outstanding work. Here are a few examples:

• Inspect all tasks on the product roadmap to ensure that they provide actual value to the organization, even when compared to the possible costs.
• When making group choices, try to keep the tension between team members to a minimum.
• In addition, because of the cost-benefit weighting, the model ensures that activities are executed consistently with the company’s goals and overall strategy.
• The elimination of manual operations during backlog refinement will accelerate the prioritization process and increase development efficiency.
• Over time, weighted scoring exposes which tasks (or features) are consistently associated with low value, providing the product owner with the opportunity to trim the backlog with little to no opposition from the team.

The Formula of Weighting Scoring

In this section, we’ll take a closer look at both, although we’ll start with the latter for various reasons that will become clear later on.
According to the scoring half of the framework, all outstanding tasks must be awarded a monetary value based on the relevance of the job in question.

The weighting half of the framework represents the criteria by which this scoring is accomplished, and this is where things get very interesting.

It is necessary to do a cost-benefit analysis of standards before applying the framework to any scenario. Once the criteria have been determined, the team must give values to each of them.

From there, it’s only a question of sorting by total score, and you’ve got yourself a prioritized list of activities that are weighted according to the most critical factors to the company. Consider why you might wish to use the weighted scoring system on a product development backlog now that you understand how to use it.

How To analyze a weighted score

The above example demonstrates how vital weighing might be in determining the strategic worth of a specific project at this moment. In six months or a year, the company may focus more on sales, and the ranking may be reversed.

Overall, this emphasizes the significance of weighing future development items in light of the current plan. Adding a shopping cart is still an excellent idea and critical to the firm’s long-term survival. However, it is not nearly as crucial as increasing the number of consumers for the time being.

Example for Using Weighted Scoring

There’s no denying that weighted scoring can be challenging to grasp, so let’s take a more practical approach to explain it.

What is the best way to use weighted scoring in the context of product development in practice? Listed below, we’ll walk you through each process and explain what your team should do to make the most effective use of the framework.

1. Make a list. The first step is to list all the jobs that need to be completed. Product development could include the following activities:
   Create a mobile version, update the user interface to reflect the new branding, and upload a sitemap.
2. Choose what you weigh. You’ll need to choose the criterion that will impact your weighting, broken down into cost and benefit categories. Costs can include “development time and resources,” while advantages can include “income growth.” Allow yourself enough time to create a list with an equal number of costs and benefits criteria that you can apply to your task list.
3. Apply weights to each selection criteria. This is typically done with a maximum weighting of 100 as the highest possible. Increasing revenue, for example, is worth 75 points, but developing a product is worth only 50 points.

You should have a matrix That includes all of your tasks in the left column and your criteria along the top. All of which have been broken down into costs and benefits, each of which has a numeric weighting value.

The rest is as simple as assigning a number (often ranging from 1 to 5) to each task based on how your criteria influence it. For example, you might give the development of a mobile version a “revenue increase” value of 5 (since it is highly essential to you) and a “development time and resource” value of 2 (because you are willing to put in the time and effort).

You’ll be able to start adding up the totals once you’ve assigned a score to each of your jobs based on each related criterion. Multiply the value you gave in the previous step by the 1-100 criteria value and sum up the values in each column of the result table.

The only thing left is to subtract the entire costs from the total benefits, and you’re done.
The result of your calculations will be a single numeric value for each task, which represents the weighted average of your results for that work.
From there, it’s only a question of sorting your backlog according to the weighted score you created. Simple!

Congratulations! You now have a rudimentary knowledge of how a weighted choice matrix determines project priority.

Conclusion

The numbers-based process for making project decisions, rather than depending on your instinct, makes this system so great. Because you’ll need their input on key-value judgments like cost, effort, and time, these systems are best built in a committee with other decision-makers.