While all of the tools I have reviewed allow you to use drag-and-drop to rank stories, it occurs to me that you have to choose what you want the resultant order to represent. This powerful metaphor for prioritizing is artificially limited to being used for a single purpose.
The ideal tool would allow the user to set a ‘ranking context’. This would be a way of preserving different sets of rankings for different reasons. By default, the tool would come with ranking contexts for Business Value, Technical Risk, Story Size, and Priority. It should also allow the user to create their own custom ranking contexts, so that the users can utilize this metaphor for whatever they like, without having to compromise.
Another thing I would like to see, in addition to having multiple ranking contexts, is the ability to allow one ranking context to be the starting point for another. For example, in the Priority context, if an absolute priority between two stories has not been determined, then it could default to the ranking defined by the Business Value context. If that context does not define the relative priority, then look at Technical risk, favoring the more risky items. And finally, in the absence of a difference in risk, opt for the smaller stories first. All this should be readily configurable.
Of course, the purpose of these ranking contexts is to augment or replace having to provide an absolute ranking value. So, one could tie the context to a numeric field. As one drags stories up and down in the list, the value changes. Or, one can change the value directly, and anchor the ranking to a particular value, allowing it to jump to the approximately correct position within the list. This position is then able to be refined by dragging, which in turn alters the values of the stories involved. This would best serve those who don’t use Planning Poker or the Business Value Game, but could easily be used in conjunction to serve as a kind of sanity check on the values that are coming out of the estimating.
What I would also like to see is for related items (groupings) to be ranked as well, and for those rankings to influence the relative ranking of the items they contain. So, for example, if I rank one feature group higher than another, then the stories within that group get a slight boost so that the average ranking of the one group is higher than the average of the other group. Likewise, if I rank one Epic or Theme higher than another, again the stories in that epic get a boost compared to the others. I could also consider a particular role above others, and a particular business proposition above others. This, alone, might do well to align the relative ranking of stories without having ever adjusted a single story up or down.
Another thing I would love to see is for there to be calculated fields that represent ratios between some of these fields that are set by ranking. So, for example, if a story has both a Business Value and a Technical Risk value, then a calculated field would estimate the risk/reward ratio. If it has both Business Value and Size, then a Return on Investment ratio is calculated. I would even calculate a Risk/Size ratio, and perhaps even an overall weighted value that takes all three into account to give the product owner a suggested priority starting point.
Of course, this all sounds really complicated. But it doesn’t have to be. A simple configuration combined with a simple but powerful user interface, and the tool can help guide even a novice product owner towards delivering maximum value with a minimum of cost.
