Forced ranking

The term "forced ranking" covers a broad category of collaborative prioritization activities — dot voting, impact-effort matrixing, the $100 test, among others.

These activities aim to put items in strict order to achieve consensus about what to focus on. To do that, the group weighs them against one another based on a specific criterion — for example, technical feasibility, impact on the user, etc.

Because of its flexibility, forced ranking can be used after almost any brainstorming activity to rank ideas. For example, it can be used to decide which ideas generated during an ideation session should be prototyped.

Forced ranking can be anonymous or not. Anonymity can prevent groupthink or a figure of authority's opinion influencing participants' decisions. Conversely, surfacing participants' rankings can foster conversation or uncover expertise-related perspectives.