--- name: roadmap-priority-ranker description: "Scores and ranks a list of product initiatives against weighted criteria — impact, effort, strategic fit, and urgency — using a transparent scoring model, then delivers a ranked table, tier groupings, and a defensible sequencing recommendation. Use when prioritizing a backlog, sequencing a roadmap, deciding what to build next quarter, or justifying trade-offs to stakeholders." argument-hint: "[initiative-list] [strategic-goals]" allowed-tools: ["Read"] --- # Roadmap Priority Ranker ## Purpose Turn a messy list of competing initiatives into a defensible, weighted priority ranking — with transparent scores, tiered groupings, and a clear sequencing recommendation — so the team stops arguing about opinions and starts executing against a shared model. ## When to Use Invoke this skill when the user asks to: - Prioritize a product backlog or list of feature ideas - Decide what to build next sprint, quarter, or half - Rank initiatives when there are more requests than capacity - Justify a roadmap decision to leadership or stakeholders - Resolve disagreement about what should come first - Re-sequence a roadmap after a strategy shift or resourcing change ## Inputs Required Before starting, collect: - **Initiative list**: The candidate initiatives, features, or projects to rank (name + 1-sentence description each) - **Strategic goals**: The 2–4 company or product objectives this roadmap serves this period - **Time horizon**: The window being planned (e.g., next quarter, next 6 months) - **Team capacity**: Rough available effort — team size, sprint count, or engineering-weeks - **Criteria weights**: How to weight impact, effort, strategic fit, and urgency (or accept defaults) - **Known constraints**: Hard dependencies, committed deadlines, or non-negotiables - **Effort estimates**: If available — rough sizing per initiative (T-shirt or story points) If weights are not provided, default to Impact 35%, Strategic Fit 25%, Urgency 20%, Effort 20% (effort scored inversely — lower effort scores higher). If effort estimates are missing, estimate them and flag the assumption. ## Instructions ### Step 1: Normalize the Initiative List Restate each initiative as a clear, comparable unit of work: - Give each a short label and a one-line outcome statement ("what changes if we ship this") - Split any initiative that bundles two distinct outcomes into separate rows - Flag anything too vague to score and note what information is missing - Number the initiatives for reference throughout ### Step 2: Confirm the Scoring Model Establish the four criteria and their weights before scoring anything: - **Impact (0–5)**: Expected effect on the strategic goals — revenue, retention, activation, cost, or risk reduction. Score against the goals provided, not generic value. - **Effort (0–5, inverse)**: Estimated cost to deliver. Score 5 = trivial, 0 = massive multi-quarter build. This dimension rewards leverage. - **Strategic Fit (0–5)**: How directly the initiative advances the stated strategic goals versus being a side quest. - **Urgency (0–5)**: Time sensitivity — deadlines, competitive pressure, decaying opportunity, or compounding cost of delay. Score 5 only when delay carries real cost. State the active weights explicitly (defaults or provided) so the math is auditable. ### Step 3: Score Each Initiative For every initiative, assign a 0–5 score on all four criteria with a one-clause justification per score (not just a number). Then compute: `Weighted Score = (Impact × w₁) + (Effort × w₂) + (Strategic Fit × w₃) + (Urgency × w₄)` Report each initiative's total on a normalized 0–100 scale for easy comparison. Be consistent — if two initiatives have similar impact, their scores should reflect that. ### Step 4: Rank and Tier Sort by weighted score descending, then group into tiers: - **Tier 1 — Do Now**: Highest scores; clear leverage and fit. Should fit within stated capacity. - **Tier 2 — Do Next**: Strong but capacity- or dependency-constrained this horizon. - **Tier 3 — Deprioritize / Revisit**: Low leverage, weak fit, or premature — with a reason each was cut. - **Quick Wins callout**: Flag any high-impact, low-effort items regardless of tier — these often jump the queue. ### Step 5: Apply Constraints and Sequence Overlay the real-world constraints on the pure scores: - Reorder for hard dependencies (prerequisite work moves earlier even if scored lower) - Honor committed deadlines and non-negotiables - Check the Tier 1 set against team capacity — cut the lowest-scoring item that overflows and note it - Note any two initiatives that should ship together or are mutually exclusive ### Step 6: Deliver the Recommendation State a clear sequencing recommendation for the horizon: what to build, in what order, and what got deferred. Call out the single highest-leverage bet and the biggest thing being consciously cut. Be opinionated — the team needs a decision, not a menu. ## Output Format - **Structure**: Scoring model summary → ranked scoring table → tier groupings → sequencing recommendation - **Length**: 700–1,100 words plus the scoring table - **Format**: Markdown table for scores (columns: #, Initiative, Impact, Effort, Fit, Urgency, Weighted Score, Tier), prose for the recommendation - **Sections**: Scoring Model & Weights → Ranked Scoring Table → Tier Groupings (with quick-wins callout) → Sequencing Recommendation - **Tone**: Product leader — decisive, transparent about trade-offs, willing to name what got cut and why ## Quality Checklist Before delivering output, verify: - [ ] Every initiative from the input appears in the scoring table (count them) - [ ] All four criteria are scored 0–5 for every initiative with a justification per score - [ ] The active weights are stated explicitly and the weighted math is consistent with them - [ ] Effort is scored inversely (low effort = high score) — not confused with impact - [ ] Tier 1 respects stated team capacity, or overflow is explicitly flagged - [ ] The final recommendation names both the top bet and what was consciously deprioritized ## Notes - Effort scores are the most common source of error — anchor them to a shared unit (weeks or points) before scoring to keep them comparable - Quick wins (high impact, low effort) frequently outrank higher-scored initiatives in practice; ship them early to build momentum - When two initiatives tie, break the tie with strategic fit — it ages better than urgency - Re-run this whenever strategy shifts; a stale ranking is worse than none because it carries false confidence --- ## How to use this skill This file is a Claude Code skill in [Anthropic's standard format](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills) — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top. **Installing in Claude Code:** - `~/.claude/skills//SKILL.md` — auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects) - `/.claude/skills//SKILL.md` — auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills) Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register. **Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:** 1. 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