| name | prioritize-requirements |
| description | WHEN/WHERE/WHO: [Scheduling: Product owners or agents grooming a backlog of features or user stories.] HOW: [Structural: Use this SKILL to score items across Value, Cost, and Risk using an analytical matrix, yielding a strict rank order.] WHY: [Scheduling: Subjective "High/Medium/Low" labels lead to everything being marked "High." Mathematical scoring forces objective trade-offs.]
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Prioritize Requirements
Who
Product Managers, Business Analysts, and AI Agents. The agent uses this skill to objectively rank work items.
What
This skill implements an Analytical Prioritization Matrix. It evaluates a list of requirements, scoring each on relative Business Value, User Value, Cost (effort), and Risk. It calculates a final Priority Score and outputs a sorted backlog.
When
Invoke this skill during sprint planning, backlog grooming, or when deciding MVP scope. Trigger phrases include: "prioritize this list," "what should we build first," "rank these user stories," or "run a prioritization matrix."
Where
Applies to feature lists, user story backlogs, and bug trackers.
Why
Without a strict framework, stakeholders tend to label every requirement as "Critical." By separating the value of a feature from the cost/risk to build it, we can identify "quick wins" (high value, low cost) and avoid "money pits" (low value, high cost).
Inputs
- A list of requirements, features, or user stories.
- (Optional) Stakeholder input on relative weights (e.g., "Cost is more important than Risk right now").
Output (Logical Evidence)
- A markdown table displaying the scores for each requirement.
- A sorted list of requirements from highest priority to lowest.
Optimization Readiness
- Failure Signals: Scores are inconsistent, the matrix falls back to vague High/Medium/Low labels, unknown effort is guessed instead of flagged, or the ranking does not separate quick wins from high-risk investments.
- Evidence To Collect: Scoring tables, weighting choices, stakeholder adjustments, and examples where the ranking was challenged or revised after review.
- Safe Mutation Boundaries: Refine scoring instructions, weighting guidance, output formatting, and review prompts without changing the core numeric prioritization workflow.
- Acceptance Criteria: Accept revisions only if the skill yields a clear numeric ranking, documents weights when used, and calls out unknown estimates instead of masking uncertainty.
- Rejected Revision Handling: Record misleading scoring heuristics, non-numeric fallback patterns, and weak explanations of tradeoffs so they are not reused blindly.
- Transfer Check: Verify the workflow still works for features, requirements, and user stories with and without stakeholder weighting.
- Stop Rule: If there are too few items or too little estimation data to produce a meaningful matrix, stop and tell the user to simplify or gather estimates first.
Constraints (Logical Boundaries)
- Do not use High/Medium/Low. You must use numerical scores (e.g., 1 to 9).
- Do not guess wildly; if a cost is completely unknown, flag it for estimation rather than giving it a random score.
One More Thing
If the provided list has fewer than 3 items, inform the user that a matrix is unnecessary and they should just use simple pairwise comparison.
How (Structural Workflow)
Phase 1: Establish the Scale and Weights
- Define the scale (usually 1 to 9, where 9 is highest value, highest cost, or highest risk).
- Assign weights to the categories if the user provided them (e.g., Business Value = 2x, Cost = 1x). Default to 1x for all.
Phase 2: Scoring
- For each requirement, estimate:
- Business Value: How much does this help the company (revenue, compliance)?
- User Value: How much does this improve the user experience?
- Cost/Effort: How hard is this to build?
- Risk/Complexity: How likely is this to break or face technical hurdles?
Phase 3: Calculation and Ranking
- Calculate the Total Value = (Business Value) + (User Value).
- Calculate the Total Penalty = (Cost) + (Risk).
- Calculate the Priority Score = (Total Value) / (Total Penalty).
- Sort the requirements descending by Priority Score.
Resources
Validation
- Verify that all items in the list were scored.
- Check the math: ensure the final sorted order matches the calculated Priority Scores.
