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ICE prioritization

Great roadmaps require clear, consistent prioritization. The ICE framework helps product managers, product teams, and leaders across the organization quickly assess and compare ideas by scoring them on three key criteria—Impact, Confidence, and Ease—each on a predefined scale.


By multiplying these scores together, ICE provides an objective starting point for discussions that cuts through debates, bias and aligns teams around initiatives that truly move the needle, all while complementing thorough user research and market insights.

What challenges does this help with?

I'd put ICE prioritization on your radar and read on, if you're facing these challenges:

  • A feature factory describes a product development approach focused solely on delivering a high volume of features, often at the expense of user needs and overall product quality. Learn more

  • No product impact means that the product or feature created does not result in any measurable change or improvement to the customer experience or business outcomes. Learn more

  • Low transparency means people don’t know what product teams are working on, and whether they’re generating impact or not. Learn more

  • The most common issues within the organization. You probably won’t be able to get rid of this, once you have a scale, but you can (and should) try to fight it as hard as possible. Learn more

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An article on ICE prioritization for beginners and intermediate practitioners containing:
What challenges does this help with?
How does it work in practice?
What Challenges Does ICE Help Address?
The Three ICE Dimensions
Zero as an option on scale?
Calculating the ICE Score
Use-case
Why Use the ICE Prioritization Framework?
Addressing Common Concerns
ICE vs. other prioritisation frameworks
How to implement it step-by-step
ICE prioritization matrix
Best Practices for Using ICE
In Conclusion
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ICE prioritization matrix in excel format Template
List of challenges this practice can help with
List of related solutions you can browse
Books and articles to become expert on ICE prioritization
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Tools to manage transformations
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