Prioritisation

WSJF

Prioritise by Cost of Delay (User & Business Value, Time Criticality, Risk Reduction & Opportunity) against Job Size.

Start

What the framework is

Weighted Shortest Job First orders work by its cost of delay divided by its job size. You do first whatever loses most by waiting and takes least time. It's the prioritisation method of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). There, cost of delay combines business value, time criticality, and risk reduction or opportunity enablement.

When it earns its place

Use it in PI planning, on portfolio backlogs, or whenever several teams must sequence many features or epics. The trap is estimating in absolute numbers nobody can defend. SAFe itself recommends relative estimation, comparing items with each other, which is exactly what comparing two at a time does.

How to run it with a group

  1. List six to ten features or epics.
  2. Participants compare them two at a time on each part of cost of delay, and on job size, on their own phones, with no account. A smaller job ranks higher.
  3. Invite business owners to judge value and time criticality, and the teams who'll do the work to judge job size.
  4. Sequence from the top of the ranking, and run it again each planning cycle.

What the result looks like

EXAMPLE
Which features should we sequence first this increment?
Top ranked
Checkout redesign
User & Business Value 92%
Time Criticality 63%
Risk Reduction & Opportunity 38%
Job Size 75%
64
67%
Rank Option User & Business Value
25%
 Time Criticality
25%
 Risk Reduction & Opportunity
25%
 Job Size
25%
 Points
(unweighted)
 Win Rate
(weighted)
01 Checkout redesign
92%
22 Wins · 2 Losses
63%
15 Wins · 9 Losses
38%
9 Wins · 15 Losses
75%
18 Wins · 6 Losses
64
67%
02 Audit logging
42%
10 Wins · 14 Losses
58%
14 Wins · 10 Losses
71%
17 Wins · 7 Losses
33%
8 Wins · 16 Losses
49
51%
03 Partner API
17%
4 Wins · 20 Losses
29%
7 Wins · 17 Losses
42%
10 Wins · 14 Losses
42%
10 Wins · 14 Losses
31
32%
Scoring Explanations
CRITERIA WEIGHTINGS — The % weighting for each criterion is shown in the table header. Unless this was entered in the setup, the weighting is equal across criteria.
POINTS — The total points across all criteria, unweighted: a win is 1 point, a tie or a skip is half a point, a loss is 0.
WIN RATE — The weighted average score per criterion, expressed as a percentage. A win counts as 1, a tie or a skip counts as half, a loss counts as 0, and every comparison shown counts in the total, skips included. Averaged across criteria using the assigned weightings.