Force the tradeoff with a method that has a cap. MoSCoW only works if the must have list is limited, so agree in advance that must have means the release genuinely cannot go live without it, and test each one by asking what happens on day one if it is missing. Then price the list against capacity so the choice becomes visible arithmetic.
Why interviewers ask this
Interviewers know that everything is mandatory is the default opening position, so they want a technique that survives it. They listen for a constraint on the top category, for a concrete test that exposes false must haves, and for showing capacity against the list so the tradeoff becomes arithmetic. Naming the failure of MoSCoW without a cap shows you have used it rather than read about it.
How to structure your answer
- Cap the must have category before scoring starts.
- Define must have as cannot go live without it.
- Test each one by asking what happens on day one without it.
- Show estimates against available capacity.
- Let the business trim its own list once the arithmetic is visible.
Example answer
MoSCoW is fine but it does nothing on its own, because the first pass always comes back with everything as a must have. What makes it work is capping the must have list before we start, usually as a percentage of capacity, and agreeing a definition: must have means we cannot go live without it, not that it is important. Then I test each one by asking what actually happens on day one if it is not there. If the answer is that we would do it manually for a few weeks, that is not a must have, that is a should have with a workaround. That single question moves about a third of the list on a typical project. And I put the estimates alongside so people can see the total against what we have, because arithmetic settles things that argument does not. On one release the business trimmed its own list once it could see it was forty days over.
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See how it worksFollow-up questions to expect
- What do you do when the sponsor overrides the prioritization?
- How do you prioritize non functional requirements against features?
- Have you used any technique other than MoSCoW, and how did it compare?
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