MoSCoW calling!
I have very much enjoyed writing these blog articles for SkillSolve who have very kindly given me a platform to trawl through my work experiences and formalise and map them into something I hope is useful.
One of the previous postings was regarding AGILE and SCRUM and Prince2. The posting looked at where they could be of benefit to each other. AGILE complements Prince2 by adding a layer of value between the Project Manager and Team Manager involvements. Prince2 positively avoids any detail surrounding how teams should be managed and planned. AGILE brings some new ideas into this gap by introducing scope tolerance mechanisms and the need to prioritise requirements. The previous posting brought forth some great comments. So I thought I would dig deeper and see what other parallels I could find.
A couple of years ago I was fortunate to be involved in a piece of consulting for a large UK insurer. The work involved analysing the products in the Learning Management Systems (LMS) market for feature, function and suitability. An LMS is used to catalogue and deliver e-learning content, track usage by user/material/date etc and generate reports. Depending upon the functionality being sought, these can be significant learning investments. At that time, there were over 60 LMS products to analyse. A partner and I split the offering alphabetically and then proceeded to analyse the features. We then colour coded the products based on feature and other commercial criteria such as company size, market share, credibility and credit rating(solvency). Assuming we had got the customers profile fully understood, we felt that we had reflected the products that would be the best fit to the customer … or so we thought!
When looking at the product features, we used the MoSCoW prioritisation method with the client. The method is attributed to Dai Clegg of Oracle UK in 1994. It has been made popular by the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) community but also is used as complimentary guidance in product selection by those adopting the ITIL framework (ITIL Service Design). We used it to assist in product selection. However it is also used when defining the objectives and requirements of a project.
The mnemonic MoSCoW, when prioritising requirements, stands for:
M – Must Have – Those requirements which non-negotiable and must be provided by the product produced by the project.
S – Should Have – Those requirements which should be delivered. They could be omitted, but should be included if possible.
C – Could Have – Those requirements that are less critical to customer acceptance. “Nice to have” but not essential.
W – Won’t Have – Those requirements that are the least critical to customer acceptance. These will tend to be delivered later.
When one begins identifying the four categories, it is worth spending time considering the relationships that exist between requirements. You can’t make a cup of tea without water. As one requirement is classified as Must Have, so there may also be others that also need to be classified in a similar way. We found that there were implied requirements – some may view these as constraints – but they formed part of the overall deliverable. Understanding these dynamics is important and crucial to planning.
On paper it could appear a little extreme having all items categorised as Must Have. It is possible and it creates another set of problems in a project in the sense that there exists hardly any scope. Resolving this needs agreement from the customer, the project manager and the relevant delivery teams. Unless a requirement is a clear Must Have, its categorisation should be challenged. The onus is then on the customer to justify why it is a Must Have. If they are unable to achieve this, then these requirements should be categorised as Should Have at best. The customer needs to appreciate the impact on the project of having nothing but Must Haves in their requirements list.
In our research we had a customer who wished to be kept in the loop with our preliminary research. The issue it caused was that the customer began to think they had under-specified their requirement. The dynamics of the e-learning marketplace as there were in 2001 were fast moving with mergers and standards emerging. Our solution to this was to give the customer an extended recommendation list. Rather than the top three products they asked for the best ten – but our analysis would focus on the core and emerging features. Then they would confirm the Must Have requirements internally before commencing the project. For us MoSCoW was an iterative practice to agree a stable product description and produce a viable business case off the back of it.
So what is the right balance of Must Haves compared to other categories. Must Haves are non-negotiable. Therefore anything else represents flexibility which you will need in your project. Realistically you should aim to keep the percentage of Must Haves as low as possible. For me personally, if the percentage rises above 50%, then you need to understand what risks you face and manage those risks well whilst ensuring all estimates are validated and well understood.
MoSCoW is not rocket science but it is an essential aspect of project definition. Before utilising timebox planning – which we will look at in a later posting – it is vital that a Prioritised Requirements List (PRL) is developed.
Additional references:
www.dsdm.org
ITIL Service Design – Colin Rudd and Vernon Lloyd – OGC TSO – ISBN: 978-0113310470
Posted November 3rd, 2009 by The Dark Knight in SkillSolve | Comments (0)

