There are a number of prioritisation patterns from the agile and product domains which have proven as being valuable when used to prioritise work in the data domain.
One of these is the 5 Lanes prioritisation pattern.
This is one of my favourite patterns to help stakeholders define the priority of the data work to be delivered.
We use the Information Product Canvas as the input for this prioritisation pattern.
5 Lanes Prioritisation
The process involves creating a board with five lanes, numbered 1 (highest priority) to 5 (lowest). Stakeholders place each Information Product Canvas into a lane to establish its priority, fostering transparency and discussions about business value and trade-offs.
To begin, set up the board as either a physical or virtual space. Then, prepare cards for each Information Product Canvas, including just the product name or brief details like the vision statement or key outcomes. The cards should be concise but provide enough context to help stakeholders understand their value.
During the workshop, stakeholders collaboratively assign each card to a lane, engaging in discussions about trade-offs and business impact. No cards can overlap, ensuring critical thinking about priorities. If lane 1 fills up, the next card moves to lane 2, and so on, making deliberate prioritisation decisions unavoidable.
Once prioritisation is complete, the data team begins work on the first Information Product in lane 1. When that Information Products has been delivered they work on the next most important card moving left to right. Multiple data teams can collaborate, selecting from the highest-priority lane.
Every few months, another workshop can refine priorities to reflect shifting organisational needs, keeping data efforts dynamically aligned with strategic goals.
The 5-Lanes prioritisation pattern promotes collaboration, transparency, and ensures your data efforts deliver maximum value with minimal wasted effort
It can be used to prioritise both the Information Product Canvas and the Data Platform Press Releases, although the stakeholders who prioritise each of these may be different.
ABC Analysis
The 5 lanes pattern is based on the ABC Analysis pattern where we put in place a forcing function to ensure stakeholders cannot place the same prioritisation on multiple pieces of work.
ABC Analysis is a prioritisation pattern that categorises work into three groups: A, B, and C. Work in the A category are the most important and urgent, while work in the C category are the least important and can be postponed.
