Ideation & Prioritization
Sort every idea by who it actually helps
Every idea helps the business, the customer, or both. Build from the win-win column and audit the business-only column for hidden harm.
Feature factories build whatever a competitor shipped or a senior leader liked. Sorting brainstormed ideas into three columns, helps the business, helps the customer, or helps both, forces accountability. It points investment at the win-win work where customer value and revenue reinforce each other.
Most product backlogs are a pile of unexamined wishes: a feature a competitor has, a pet idea from someone senior, a growth hack from a workshop. A simple sort brings discipline. Put every idea in one of three columns: helps only the business, helps only the customer, or helps both. Business-only ideas deserve hard scrutiny, because that column is where deceptive designs and sneaky terms hide. Customer ideas should trace to pain points found in real research. The win-win column, where a change improves the customer's life and fuels the business, is where returns concentrate.
Why it matters to the business
Win-win work pays measurably. McKinsey's journey research found that improving priority customer journeys lifts revenue 10-15% while cutting cost-to-serve 15-20%, value on both sides of the ledger at once. PwC found customers will pay up to a 16% price premium for great experience. The business-only column carries the opposite economics: Luguri and Strahilevitz found mild dark patterns more than doubled sign-ups to a dubious service without triggering complaints, revenue that looks like growth while it burns trust. Regulators eventually send the invoice; FTC dark-pattern settlements include $520 million from Epic Games and $2.5 billion from Amazon.
How to use it
- Before brainstorming solutions, run an impact map or similar root-cause exercise so ideas answer a real problem.
- Source customer-column ideas from qualitative research, support logs, and observed behavior, not from a roomful of guesses.
- Sort the full backlog into the three columns in one working session with product, CX, and commercial leads present.
- Audit the business-only column quarterly and ask of each item: does this profit at the customer's expense?
- Rank the win-win column first for the next planning cycle and defend it against pet projects.
Where teams get it wrong
Teams treat the sort as a one-time workshop rather than a standing filter. Six months later the backlog has refilled with unlabelled ideas, and the business-only column has quietly grown, because those ideas are the easiest to justify with short-term metrics. The sort only protects you as a recurring gate on what gets built, owned by someone with authority to say no.
Ask your team
- Of the top ten items on our roadmap, which column does each sit in, and who checked?
- Which shipped feature from the last year helped us but cost the customer something?
- What customer pain point, evidenced in research, does our next release actually remove?
An idea that only helps the business is a cost the customer has not noticed yet.
Apply this
Reading about sort every idea by who it actually helps is one thing. Seeing where it applies in your journey is the useful part.