DecisionPrincipiante

MoSCoW Method

A prioritisation framework dividing requirements or tasks into four categories: Must Have (non-negotiable), Should Have (important but not critical), Could Have (nice to have if time/resources allow), and Won't Have this time (explicitly out of scope). It forces explicit scope decisions and is widely used in product management, project planning, and sprint planning.

Durata

30m–2h

Dimensione del gruppo

2–20 people

Materiali

list of requirements or features, four labelled columns or quadrants

Fonte

Community

Come eseguirlo

1
List all candidate requirements, tasks, or features on individual cards or sticky notes.
2
Set up four columns: Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, Won't Have.
3
Explain the rules: Must Haves are the minimum viable set — without them the deliverable fails. Should Haves are highly desirable. Could Haves are low-priority extras. Won't Haves are explicitly deferred.
4
The group places each item into a column. Items in Must Have column should represent no more than 60–70% of effort.
5
If Must Haves exceed capacity: promote nothing, reduce the list.
6
Review and confirm Won't Haves explicitly — this is as important as the Must Haves.

Suggerimenti

The most common mistake is putting too much in Must Have.
Challenge every Must Have with: 'What happens if we don't deliver this?' If the answer isn't 'the project fails', it's probably a Should Have.

Variazioni

Combine with effort estimation (T-shirt sizing) to make prioritisation more realistic. For agile teams, run MoSCoW per sprint rather than per entire project.

Casi d'uso

Sprint planningProduct roadmap prioritisationRequirements gatheringProject scoping

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Method descriptions on Workshop Weaver are original content written by our team, based on established facilitation practices.