Guide: Mastering prioritization with RICE

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Effective prioritization is a superpower of successful product teams. It enables you to move fast and focus on high-impact activities. However, prioritization isn't a solo task—it is a collaborative effort involving the whole product team and key stakeholders.

This guide helps you set up and use the RICE Framework within Jira Product Discovery. Use this template to remove bias, identify "low-hanging fruit" (High Impact/Low Effort), and spot risky bets before development begins.

What is the RICE Framework?

The RICE framework standardizes decision-making by scoring ideas based on four factors.

• Reach: How many users will this feature affect over a specific period?

• Impact: How much will this move the needle on our key metric?

• Confidence: How sure are we about our estimates for Reach and Impact?

• Effort: How much time and resource investment is required?

Reach, Impact, and Confidence increase your score (Numerator), while Effort decreases it (Denominator).

How to setup and use a RICE view in Jira Product Discovery

Step 1: create your input fields

You need fields to capture the inputs. In your Jira Product Discovery view, create the following:

• 'Rating' fields (1-5) for Reach, Impact, Effort
  • Alternative: use number field if using actual user counts
  • Define what 5 dots mean for each input field) 
• 'Slider' field (percentage) for Confidence
  • Alternative: use rating field for higher level scoring.

Step 2: create the formula field

This field does the heavy lifting. Create a new field of type Custom Formula and name it RICE Score.

Use the following logic for your configuration:

Step 3: apply visual formatting & sorting

• Color coding: Add formatting rules to the RICE Score field.
  • Green: Top 20% scores (High Priority)
  • Yellow: Middle tier
  • Red: Bottom tier (Low Priority)
• Sort: Apply a default sort to the view by RICE Score (Descending). This ensures the highest value items always appear at the top.

Quick tips

A score is just a number until you add context. Here's how to use this view effectively: 

• Invite your team & stakeholders into the discussion to identify which ideas will deliver the most value relative to the resources required. 
• Calibrate scores: Ambiguity kills prioritization. Ensure the team interprets "Effort" consistently (Example: 1 dot = 1 Week; 5 dots = 2 Months.
• Discuss the "Why": the score isn't the final decision; it's the conversation starter. Use it to debate why one idea has higher confidence than another
• Review regularly: RICE scores are not static. As you learn more about a customer problem, update your Confidence or Impact estimates to see if the priority changes.

See RICE in action

Not sure where to start? Create a dedicated space with pre-built views to explore a real-life example of the RICE scoring framework.

Note:

• Only Site/Org Admins and users with permission to create spaces can access this feature.

• If you do not have these permissions, please ask your admin to create the space and invite you.

[Carolyn McNicoll]

@Jet This article is helpful, but I have questions based on the recent JPD template change I just discovered.  The RICE view was a default in JPD for a few months.  Now there is a column in the Impact assessment view for "fx RICE score" and a column for Impact.  I expected there would be columns for Reach, Confidence, and Effort too.  

The custom formula is set to RICE score, the Expression includes all 4 factors.  And formatting for the score color is included too.  

The Impact vs Effort matrix also uses the fx RICE score now in the default space.  But I see no way to calculate it. 

Was it a mistake they didn't include the other 3 factors in the Impact assessment when they removed the RICE view?

[Jet]

Hi @carol 

Thanks for raising this! I can see how the recent space template changes would be confusing if you were relying on the RICE view.

I’ve taken a look at the current 'Product Discovery' space template, and all 4 RICE factors (Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort) do still exist in the template. However, only Impact and the calculated fx RICE score are included by default in the Impact assessment view. Reach and Confidence are available as fields but aren’t added to the default views.

You can easily add Reach and Confidence as columns yourself if you want to see or edit them directly in that view. The fx RICE score column uses a custom formula that already includes all four factors, which is why it can still be used for things like score formatting and the Impact vs Effort matrix, even though not all factors are visible by default.

This was an intentional choice rather than a mistake. The Product Discovery template is designed to stay lightweight and flexible, so not all prioritization fields are surfaced by default. If you’re looking for a fully pre-configured RICE setup, the Prioritization space template includes the complete RICE framework out of the box, along with additional prioritization models.

That said, your feedback is really helpful, especially around making the calculation and contributing factors more obvious when the RICE view isn’t present.

Best,

Jet

[Carolyn McNicoll]

@Jet Thanks for the info.  I got confused about the 3 templates.  I had selected Product Discovery but was comparing it to a Prioritization template we had previously set up as a demo.  From the definitions of the 3 templates, I thought Product Discovery was where most teams new to JPD would start.  But is that not the case for product teams that have been doing some form of product discovery and prioritization for a while and have a backlog of ideas?

How do you recommend a team that is new to using something other than excel start with JPD?  Does it depend on how mature their product management process is?  I'm looking for the guidelines of when to use which space template.  

In regard to the fx calculations in the Discovery template, how does a team assign a rating to the Reach and Confidence if the files are not displayed in the views? 

Thanks,

Carolyn