Score the outcomes before the roadmap
When: Prioritisation is settled by the loudest voice, the biggest customer, or the most recent escalation. The backlog is long, conviction is high on all sides, and nobody can say which improvements the job executor would actually value.
The action: Gather the outcomes people use to judge whether the job is going well, stated as measurable improvements free of any solution. Have job executors rate each for importance and for how well current solutions satisfy it. Point the roadmap at the outcomes that are important and poorly served, and starve the ones that are already overserved.
Forces: The gathering and scoring work is slow and unglamorous against the speed of just arguing, and it threatens pet features with sponsorship behind them. Outcomes gathered from buyers or proxies rather than the people executing the job corrupt the whole exercise. Scores inform judgement and do not replace it.
Signals: Within weeks, at least one confidently held roadmap item moves because the scoring showed its outcome already well served. Prioritisation debates cite the underserved outcomes rather than restating opinions. Overserved areas stop accumulating investment.
When not to: When the population of job executors is too small or too novel to survey and deep interviews are the honest instrument. When the team would treat the scores as an oracle, since a ranked list wielded without judgement is the procedure trap wearing numbers.
Instance: Ulwick's Bosch account, where outcome scoring for tradespeople using circular saws surfaced underserved outcomes the feature race had ignored, and the resulting CS20 succeeded in a crowded market.
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