Prioritise
ICE scoring
Also called ICE framework
Rank experiments fast: score each idea's impact, confidence and ease from 1 to 10, combine them, and test the top ones first.
- Time20 to 40 minutes
- People2 to 8 people
- Steps4
What it's for
ICE is a lighter cousin of RICE, made for teams running many small experiments. Each idea gets three scores out of ten: how much it could move the goal, how sure you are that it will, and how easy it is to try. Multiply them or take the average, then work from the top.
The scores are rough, so ICE suits a list of tests better than a roadmap of big bets. Score again after each round of results, because what you learn changes the confidence.
How to run it
List the ideas5 min
One experiment per note in the Ideas column.
Agree the scales5 min
Say out loud what a 10 and a 1 mean for impact, confidence and ease on this goal.
Score alone, then compare15 min
Each person scores every idea. Where scores are far apart, talk it through and settle on one.
Rank5 min
Combine the three scores the same way for every idea and sort. Pick the top few to run this cycle.
Tips
- Pick one way to combine the scores, multiplying or averaging, and keep it. Mixing them makes the ranking meaningless.
- A wide spread of scores on one idea is worth more discussion than the average.
Where it comes from
Popularised by Sean Ellis, who coined the term growth hacking, as a way to rank growth experiments, and described in Hacking Growth (2017), written with Morgan Brown.
Pairs well with
RICE scoring
Score each idea on reach, impact, confidence and effort, then rank by one number that rewards likely wins for little work.
Hypothesis statement
Write an idea as a testable belief: what we'll build, for whom, the outcome we expect, and the signal that will show we were right.
Impact and effort matrix
Place each option by how much difference it would make and how hard it would be, to find the quick wins and the big bets.