A sorting exercise that quietly defines your product

On the surface, sorting features into “must-have” and “nice-to-have” seems straightforward. You look at your roadmap, decide what’s essential, and leave the rest for later.

In practice, almost no one does this well. The lists get muddled. Most features end up as must-haves. The exercise stops doing its job.

Why? Because when you’re close to a product, every feature feels important. Each one has a reason it’s there. Each one came from somewhere — a user request, a strategic idea, a perceived gap, a feature your competitors offer. Calling any of them “nice-to-have” feels like demoting a small child.

But the sorting matters. Without it, the team builds everything, ships nothing on time, and the MVP balloons into something far heavier than i...

Must-have vs nice-to-have (and why it’s harder than it sounds)