3x3 Prioritization Method Template
Help your team prioritize features and business ideas based on customer impact and effort. Group initiatives to work on next and in the future.
About the 3x3 Prioritization Method Template
The 3x3 Prioritization Method Template, or action priority matrix, helps teams prioritize features and initiatives based on their user impact and the level of effort needed for success. It offers a new level of detail that the 2x2 Prioritization Matrix (or Lean Prioritization Method) may lack.
With nine “buckets” or areas of interest, your team can quickly decide if an idea or feature is low, medium, or high effort. The team can also accordingly decide if the idea or feature will likely have low, medium, or high impact.
As a visual tool, 3x3 prioritization helps teams promptly reach an agreement on quick wins, big projects, filler tasks, or anything that could waste time.
What is the 3x3 prioritization method?
The 3x3 prioritization method is a visual representation of where teams should allocate their time and resources. There are typically 4 quadrants in a 3x3 prioritization method matrix:
Quick wins: actions fundamental to team success that lead to the best return on effort and should be prioritized before anything else.
Major projects: complex actions with long-term return on effort, best if selectively chosen and efficiently executed.
Filler activities: everyday tasks that can easily be deprioritized.
Time sucks: activities too time-consuming that can be delegated or avoided.
This matrix is adaptable for use during daily team stand-ups, or for strategic action plans or Agile sprint planning.
When to use the 3x3 prioritization method
This prioritization approach can help product managers and cross-functional teams:
Quickly determine what activities or ideas to focus on
Make the most of limited resources
Reflect on strategies and goals without wasting time or effort
Align priorities and sync up on solutions to any problems discussed
The framework can be started by a team lead, who then invites other team members to offer feedback and add ideas to the four quadrants as needed.
Create your own 3x3 prioritization matrix
Making your own 3x3 prioritization matrix is easy. Miro’s is the perfect tool to create and share it. Get started by selecting the 3x3 Prioritization Method Template, then take the following steps to make one of your own.
Decide on a clear objective for your impact effort analysis. Ask your team whether that objective should be strategic, tactical, project-related, product- or service-related, or personal (in terms of development or team growth). Have a clear scope or time frame in mind, too – are you planning for days, weeks, months, or over a year?
Brainstorm what you need to achieve those objectives. Examples of needs driven by this framework can include prioritizing actions from a planning session, developing priorities for a project team, establishing milestones for an employee’s performance plan, or prioritizing features to focus on from a product backlog.
Collect and refine your team ideas. Everyone can draft their ideas or contributions on sticky notes. Then, refine them with a live call or video chat feedback as needed.
Position your ideas according to impact and effort. Encourage everyone to assess where their idea fits on the quadrant, and move it accordingly: is it a quick win, major project, filler idea, or time suck?
Create an action plan with the next steps. Do specific team members need to test an idea’s validity? Schedule a follow-up meeting? Clarify impact and effort? Remember, value can be defined as qualitative (low to high) or quantitative (by a numbered scale, currency, time spent, or volume of output).
Share the outcome with anyone who couldn’t attend the session. Invite team members, clients, or stakeholders through Slack, email, or a public or private hyperlink as needed so that everyone can catch up on the details.
Get started with this template right now.
Four-Circle Venn Diagram
Works best for:
Venn Diagram
The Four Circle Venn Diagram template is designed for comparing four sets of data. Use this tool to identify commonalities and differences across multiple categories. This template is ideal for complex data analysis, strategic planning, and academic research. It helps you visually organize information, making it easier to understand and communicate insights. Perfect for educators, researchers, and professionals in need of detailed comparison tools.
Company Organization Chart
Works best for:
Org Charts, Operations, Mapping
The Company Organization Chart template enables clear visualization of hierarchical structures within an organization. It helps teams understand reporting lines, roles, and responsibilities, fostering transparency and alignment. With customizable features, such as color-coding and labeling, this template facilitates effective communication and decision-making across departments and levels.
Product Roadmap Template
Works best for:
Product Management, Roadmaps
Product roadmaps help communicate the vision and progress of what’s coming next for your product. It’s an important asset for aligning teams and valuable stakeholders – including executives, engineering, marketing, customer success, and sales – around your strategy and priorities. Product roadmapping can inform future project management, describe new features and product goals, and spell out the lifecycle of a new product. While product roadmaps are customizable, most contain information about the products you’re building, when you’re building them, and the people involved at each stage.
Opportunity Canvas Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Decision Making, Strategic Planning
Features and capabilities — they make or break a product, which is why companies spend so much time and effort focusing on them. Sound like you? Try it with an Opportunity Canvas. This streamlined one-pager gives you and your team the power to improve your product by exploring the use cases, potential setbacks, strategies, challenges, and metrics. An Opportunity Canvas is ideal if you’ve already built a product, because you don’t need to consider the operational or revenue model.
Decision Matrix Template
Works best for:
Strategy & Planning
The Decision Matrix Template is an intuitive visual tool for structuring and evaluating multiple choices against distinct criteria. Presenting options in a comparative layout helps distill complex decisions into a digestible format.
How Now Wow Matrix Template
Works best for:
Ideation, Product Management, Prioritization
There are no bad ideas in a brainstorm — but some are more original and easier to implement. The How Now Wow matrix is a tool that helps you identify and organize those great ideas, as well as reinvigorates your team to think creatively and take risks (a taller order as you scale). Grab this template to create your own matrix, then rank the ideas you generated in a brainstorm as “How” (difficult to implement), “Now” (easy to implement), or “Wow” (both original and easy to implement).