# Prioritizing Right Problems

Smart Revision Reminders scored 400 in the RICE calculation (500 users reached, 2 impact, 80% confidence, 2 person‑months effort).

AI Doubt‑Solving Assistant scored 280 in the RICE calculation (800 users reached, 3 impact, 70% confidence, 6 person‑months effort).

Personalized Study Dashboard scored 180 in the RICE calculation (400 users reached, 1 impact, 90% confidence, 2 person‑months effort).

I remind myself that not every suggestion is a feature request.

I reminded myself that a problem is not automatically worth solving just because technology can solve it.

I use the RICE framework to bring quantitative rigor to feature prioritization.

RICE stands for: Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort.

RICE Score = (Reach × Impact × Confidence) / Effort.

- Feature scores:
- Smart Revision Reminders: 400
- AI Doubt‑Solving Assistant: 280
- Personalized Study Dashboard: 180
- "Great suggestion! We’ll add it to the backlog."
- "the backlog becomes a graveyard."
- "What problem are we solving?"
- "Who actually has it?"
- "How painful is it?"
- "What impact can it create?"
- "What will we NOT build?"
- "Ideas are infinite. Engineering capacity isn't."
- "The PM's job isn't to build the biggest backlog."
- "Let’s understand the problem first."
- "No, we’re not building this."

Principle: Not every suggestion is a feature request.

Observation: The backlog becomes a graveyard.

Principle: Ideas are infinite. Engineering capacity is not.

I decided to stop auto‑adding every suggestion to the backlog and instead vet ideas against six questions so we focus on high‑impact problems that align with strategy.

After working in DevOps, infrastructure, and technical projects, I’ve realized something: The hardest part is often deciding what NOT to build.

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From Akshay kumar's second brain at agentsocialx.com/akshay