Roadmap prioritisation by impact on financial results and resources
A roadmap set by the latest requests from sales and key customers rarely leads to growth in the results of the company as a whole. The article describes how to express the impact of initiatives in PLN of margin, compare them taking confidence and cost into account, split team capacity into pools, and which mistakes to avoid.
Amounts and values in the examples are illustrative and show how the calculation works. In projects, we use the client's data.
Dominik Dębski · Lemur Media · · reading time: 4 min
Reviewed by Dominik Dębski, 1 November 2026
What is roadmap prioritisation by impact on results?
Roadmap prioritisation by impact on results is a method of setting the order of product initiatives based on the estimated annual impact on gross margin in PLN, the confidence in that estimate and the cost expressed in team time. The method links product decisions to the budget: the board sees how much financial result each week of team work delivers and how team capacity is divided. A popular alternative is RICE scoring (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort), described in 2018 by Sean McBride on the Intercom blog, which scores reach and impact on users instead of money.
How do you express an initiative's impact in PLN?
Each initiative is assigned to one metric in the metric tree, e.g. conversion, retention or average revenue per customer, and the change in the metric is converted into annual gross margin. Revenue without margin overstates the impact of initiatives in low-profitability areas. An initiative that cannot be linked to any metric needs a different kind of justification, e.g. regulatory or security.
Example for initiative B: shortening onboarding is expected to retain 3 additional customers a year, with a contract value of PLN 62,500 and a gross margin of 80%. The impact is 3 × PLN 62,500 × 0.8 = PLN 150,000.
How do you compare initiatives?
Initiatives are compared by annual impact multiplied by confidence and divided by cost in weeks of team work. Confidence is expressed as a number from 0.1 to 1, depending on whether the estimate is based on data, tests or opinion.
| Initiative | Annual impact | Confidence | Expected impact | Cost | Priority (PLN per week) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. New package for large customers | PLN 400,000 | 0,5 | PLN 200,000 | 8 weeks | 25 000 |
| B. Shorter onboarding | PLN 150,000 | 0,8 | PLN 120,000 | 2 weeks | 60 000 |
| C. New product module | PLN 900,000 | 0,3 | PLN 270,000 | 20 weeks | 13 500 |
Initiative C has the largest expected impact but the lowest priority, because the estimate is uncertain and the cost high. A sensible step is a cheaper test that raises confidence before deciding on full delivery.
How do you allocate team resources?
Team capacity is divided into pools set by the board for the quarter: growth initiatives scored by the ratio, maintenance and technical debt, and customer commitments. Work in the non-growth pools does not compete with growth initiatives in a single ranking, but its share is transparent and capped.
| Pool | Share | Team weeks (5 teams × 12 weeks = 60) | Example allocation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growth | 70% | 42 | B (2), A (8), test of C (4), next items on the list (28) |
| Maintenance, technical debt, security | 20% | 12 | Updates, incidents, work required by regulation |
| Customer commitments | 10% | 6 | Changes written into contracts |
The proportions are a starting point: a company with a lot of technical debt may allocate more than 20% to maintenance. The proportions are not changed mid-quarter without a formal decision. Every new request goes into one of the pools and requires removing another item of similar cost.
What does the quarterly decision cycle look like?
The cycle covers gathering initiatives with estimates, reviewing assumptions with finance, a board decision on pools and order, and a review of results after the quarter.
- Gathering initiatives: each with a metric, impact on margin, confidence, cost and documented assumptions, 3 weeks before the start of the quarter.
- Reviewing assumptions: the finance department checks the contract values, margins and customer numbers used in the estimates.
- Board decision: allocation of capacity to pools and an ordered list of initiatives in the growth pool.
- Review after the quarter: comparing the estimated impact with the outcome and adjusting the confidence scale for future estimates.
What are the common mistakes and limitations?
The ratio is a starting point for the board's discussion, because its result depends on assumptions that are easy to inflate. The most common mistakes:
- Adding initiatives to the quarter without removing others.
- Impact estimates without documented assumptions and without comparison with the outcome after release.
- Calculating impact in revenue instead of gross margin.
- Adding up the impact of initiatives that act on the same metric, which leads to double counting.
- No review after the quarter: without comparing the estimate with the outcome, confidence in future estimates does not improve.