ICE: a simple and fast matrix to prioritize your projects

At work, you often have multiple tasks or projects to complete and don't know where to start. To help you make a decision, there are various tools such as Eisenhower matrix that makes it easier to prioritize tasks by helping you to classify them according to their importance and urgency.

However, if none of the tasks or projects are not urgent or important, the Eisenhower Matrix will be of no use to you. So, to allow you to determine what is the next project to undertake to increase your turnover, improve your brand image or acquire more customers, the ICE matrix (also called the ICE scoring method) is the tool you need.

What is the ICE matrix?

The ICE scoring method (ICE Scoring Model) was created by Sean Ellis, the founder and CEO of GrowthHackers. It was he who invented the term “growth hacking”, literally “growth hacking”, a set of marketing techniques that can accelerate the growth of a business.

Simple, easy to use and effective, the ICE matrix only takes into account three criteria for each idea or project:

• Impact : if this project or idea is implemented, what will be the impact? How will it benefit the business (increased sales, reduced expenses, improved customer service, etc.)?
• Confidence (confidence): what are the chances for this project or idea to be a success? Are you confident in the success of this project?
• Ease (ease of execution) : how easily can this project be implemented? What resources (human, financial and material) will be required?

There is also an Impact, Cost, and Effort version.

With this method, the team can quickly calculate the ICE score for each item, and define the order of priorities.

How does it work?

The ICE matrix is in the form of a table with five columns.

Projects/IdeasImpactConfidenceEaseScore Start a contest 8 8 8 512 Create a page on Instagram 7 6 9 378 Make an emailing campaign 4 5 7 140

In the first column, list all the projects and/or ideas that you would like to realize and that will allow you to achieve your goals (for example, acquire more customers), then give each idea a score of 1 to 10 (1 being the lowest and 10 the highest) regarding the impact it will have on the business, the chances of success of the project and the ease of implementation. For example, an impact of 10 indicates that the project will be very beneficial for the business and a score of 10 in the Ease column indicates that the project will be very easy to set up.

Once you've assigned a grade in each column, create the score for each project by multiplying the numbers together. The higher the end result, the higher your project should be on your priority list.

For example, for the “launch a competition” project, it is estimated that the impact for the company will be high (8 out of 10) because competitions are very popular and this will therefore make it possible to reach a large number of people.

We are also confident that this project will be a success (8 out of 10) because we want to offer an attractive reward, which should boost the participation rate. Finally, organizing a competition is easy, not very expensive and does not require much maintenance (hence the score of 8 out of 10).

In the end, the score of the “launch a competition” project is 512 (8 x 8 x 8). That puts it at the top of our priority list.

The benefits of the ICE matrix

The main advantage of the ICE matrix is that it is quick and easy to use, allowing teams to make a choice more quickly.

When no project is urgent or important, it helps you decide what to do first, objectively and without emotions.

The fact that the values are multiplied together gives each of the three criteria the same importance and the same influence on the final result. Thus, the difference between an 8 and a 9 is amplified, which allows you to be more precise and fair in the ranking of your projects in relation to each other.

The disadvantages

This method is variable because it depends on who is doing the scoring. Thus, two people can give completely different ratings to the same idea based on their perception. The ICE matrix is therefore very subjective.

Ease of implementation (ease) generally lowers the score because the team does not necessarily want to invest a lot of time, money and resources in implementing a project. However, the projects that will have the biggest impact are often the ones that require the biggest investment.

Few people in the company have sufficient information to predict the three elements of the matrix because this requires both commercial and technical knowledge.

To conclude

This method is for you if you need to make decisions quickly, without wasting time.

Remember that the real objective of the ICE model is to provide a simple but relative prioritization system, and not a rigorous way to calculate based on accurate data.

To minimize inconsistent reviews, clearly define what each grade means for you and your team. For example, establish what a score of 4 in Impact, 7 in Confidence, and 6 in Ease means. Thus, each employee will grade in the same way.