When using MoSCoW as a prioritization method, two things are obvious:

  • Must have: there is no value without shipping it
  • Won’t have: out of scope

Should have can include some worthy ideas that couldn’t make it into the first launch. It’s also likely that post-launch user feedback will replace most of those ideas as the next priorities.

The last item left, Could have, is pretty vague - and somewhat dangerous. If it doesn’t deliver instant value or can’t bring value anytime soon, should we even bother keeping it around?

It’s better to delete everything that would end up there and free our minds (and our backlogs) from it.

Anything worth remembering for the future will show up, one way or another.