Within every project we must carefully prioritize requirements in order for the project to deliver the biggest return to the organization and to be considered successful. Failure to use a sensible criteria for prioritizing requirements is one of the reasons why projects fail. So, what process can we use to do this?

One simple way is to use a combination of Clear Goals and MoSCoW prioritization.
Clear Goals is simply a way of stating that we know exactly what the business is trying to achive by undertaking this project. For example, to grow revenues by 5% in Mexico, or to increase user satisfaction by 10% etc.

MoSCoW is an aycronym. The two o’s don’t mean anything, but the other letters mean the following:

M: this must be done
S: this should be done
C: this could be done (time permitting)
W: this won’t be done as the other priorities are more important.

So, how do we use these two together? Simple. We need the Goals defined first so it makes it simple for us to use the MoSCoW prioritization. An example should help explain: if we have a requirement to make performance faster in Brazil, but the goal of the project is to grow revenues in Mexico by 5% then it’s fairly clear that this requirement isn’t an M or MUST do. More likely it’s a Could or Won’t as it doesn’t even contribute to the goal of increasing revenues in Mexico by 5%.

If we have lots of goals, we can even use MoSCoW prioritization to prioritize them!

Original Author : Arval Deco
Courtesy : http://EzineArticles.com/4620217