Product: Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort (RICE)

The RICE model is a framework designed by Intercom to assist product managers to determine which features and products should be prioritised on roadmaps. RICE was developed from first principles and comprises four factors (Reach, Impact, Confidence and Effort) and a method for combining them.

Reach

A relative estimate of how many customers a feature, project or thing will impact typically within a defined time period. Whilst Intercom suggests use definitive measurement (i.e. total customers), Prioritizr at this stage provides a sliding scale from “None” (0%) to “All” (100%) customers. This sliding scale can be adjusted to exact customer numbers for your project in the Prioritizr project configuration.

Impact

A relative measure of how much a feature, project or thing will impact each customer. This is difficult to measure precisely, so a factor-based approach is used which helps teams indicate “None” impact (0) to “Massive” (3). This sliding scale can be adjusted for your project in the Prioritizr project configuration.

Reach is multiplied by an impact score to provide a pseudo value score (i.e. Reach x Impact).

Confidence

A relative measure of how confident you are in your estimates, which help moderate the Reach and Impact scores. This is expressed as a percentage from “None” (0%) to “High” (100%). This sliding scale can be adjusted for your project in the Prioritizr project configuration.

Effort

A relative measure of how much effort is required to complete a feature, project or item. Typically this is estimated in months with Prioritizr providing a sliding scale from “None” (0) to “Large” (12). This sliding scale can be adjusted for your project in the Prioritizr project configuration.

Score

The total score is calculated by multiplying reach, impact and confidence, then dividing by the effort. This equation provides a mechanism for prioritizing the highest value (reach and impact) things that the team has confidence in and can be done quickly.