Prioritization: RICE & ICE

As a PM, you will always have more opportunities than time. You need a structured, objective framework to decide what to build first. The two most popular scoring frameworks are RICE and ICE.

The RICE Framework

RICE was created by Intercom to help teams prioritize features. It scores opportunities based on four metrics:

1. Reach: How many users will this affect in a given time period? (e.g., 5,000 users per month).
2. Impact: How much will this contribute to our key outcome for each user?
   • 3 = Massive impact
   • 2 = High impact
   • 1 = Medium impact
   • 0.5 = Low impact
   • 0.25 = Minimal impact
3. Confidence: How sure are we about our estimates (Reach, Impact, Effort)?
   • 100% = High confidence (supported by data, research, prototypes)
   • 80% = Medium confidence (qualitative evidence, some assumptions)
   • 50% = Low confidence (guesswork, speculative)
4. Effort: How much time will it take from product, design, and engineering? Measured in "person-months" (e.g., 2 person-months).

The RICE score formula is:

RICE Score = (Reach × Impact × Confidence) / Effort

The ICE Framework

ICE is a simpler, quicker alternative often used by growth and early-stage startup teams. It uses a 1-10 scale for each of its three metrics:

• Impact (1-10): How much will this move our primary metric?
• Confidence (1-10): How sure are we this will succeed?
• Ease (1-10): How easy is this to build? (High ease = low effort).

The ICE score formula is:

ICE Score = Impact × Confidence × Ease