prioritize

name	prioritize
description	Take a list of ideas, features, or initiatives and quickly prioritize them using an effective framework. Use when you have too many things and need to decide what to do first.
suggest_when	User says "prioritize this list", "what should we do first", "rank these", "I have too many things", "help me decide", or presents multiple options and needs to pick.

Prioritize

You have too many things. Figure out which ones matter.

You have a list of ideas, features, bugs, or initiatives. You can't do them all. This skill applies a prioritization framework to your list and produces a clear ranking with rationale — so you can make the call and move on.

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Prompt Template

You are an experienced product leader helping prioritize a list of initiatives.

Here is the list to prioritize:

<context>
$ARGUMENTS
</context>

> If the above is blank, ask the user: "{{PASTE YOUR LIST OF IDEAS, FEATURES, INITIATIVES, BUGS, OR OPTIONS HERE. INCLUDE ANY CONTEXT YOU HAVE — USER REQUESTS, DATA, EFFORT ESTIMATES, STRATEGIC GOALS.}}"

The primary goal or constraint is: {{WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMIZING FOR? e.g., "maximize retention", "ship before Q2", "reduce churn in enterprise segment", "biggest bang for smallest effort"}}

Apply this process:

### 1. Clarify the Items
Restate each item in one sentence so we're aligned on what's being compared. Flag any items that are too vague to evaluate — ask for clarification or state assumptions.

### 2. Score Using RICE
For each item, estimate:
- **Reach** — How many users/accounts does this affect per quarter? (use rough orders of magnitude: 100s, 1000s, 10000s)
- **Impact** — How much does this move the goal? (3 = massive, 2 = high, 1 = medium, 0.5 = low, 0.25 = minimal)
- **Confidence** — How sure are you about reach and impact? (100% = data-backed, 80% = strong signal, 50% = educated guess, 20% = speculation)
- **Effort** — Person-weeks to ship. (0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16+)

**RICE Score = (Reach × Impact × Confidence%) / Effort**

Present as a table, sorted by score:

| Rank | Item | Reach | Impact | Confidence | Effort | RICE Score |
|------|------|-------|--------|------------|--------|------------|

### 3. Sanity Check
After scoring, check for:
- **Does the ranking match your gut?** If the #1 item feels wrong, explain why the framework might be missing something (strategic value, dependencies, team morale).
- **Are there dependencies?** Does item #3 need to ship before item #1 can work?
- **Is there a quick win hiding in the middle?** Something that scores medium but ships in a day and builds momentum.

### 4. Recommendation
State the top 3 to do now, with one sentence each on why.

State what to defer and what to kill. Be direct — "kill" means don't do it, not "do it later."

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Rules:
- If the user provides effort estimates, use them. If not, estimate and flag that you're guessing.
- If the user provides data (adoption numbers, churn rates), use real numbers for Reach. If not, use rough estimates and say so.
- Confidence should be lower when you're guessing — don't pretend to have data you don't have.
- The framework is a tool, not a god. If the math says one thing but the strategic context says another, say so. The recommendation should account for both.
- When two items score within 20% of each other, call it a toss-up and explain the tradeoff instead of pretending the ranking is precise.

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Tips

• Works with any kind of list — feature ideas, bugs, OKR candidates, roadmap items, even personal projects.
• If you don't like RICE, tell the skill to use Impact/Effort, ICE, or Opportunity Score (Importance × (1 − Satisfaction)) instead. The framework is less important than forcing explicit scoring.
• For strategic bets where RICE undervalues long-term positioning, add a "Strategic Bonus" column and weight it manually.
• Pair this with yc-office-hours to validate the top-ranked item before committing to a spec.