The MoSCoW Method: How to Prioritize Your Software Requirements

Last year, I watched a project die in slow motion. The team had an ambitious vision, a solid budget, and talented developers. They also had a feature list that kept growing. Every stakeholder meeting added new requirements. Every competitor announcement triggered another must-have. Six months in, they were still building version one, while their runway burned.

The problem wasn't the features themselves. Each one made sense in isolation. The problem was that nobody could say no. Without a framework for prioritization, everything seemed equally important. And when everything is equally important, nothing ships.

The Elegant Simplicity of Four Boxes

MoSCoW emerged in 1994 from the mind of Dai Clegg, and it has survived three decades because it works. The name is a mnemonic: Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have. Every feature goes into exactly one box. No medium priority. No "important but not critical." Just four clear categories that force real decisions.

The must-haves are your minimum viable product. Without them, the software serves no purpose. A habit tracker that can't track habits isn't a habit tracker. A booking system that can't accept bookings is a fancy loading screen. These features are non-negotiable for launch.

Should-haves add significant value but aren't existential. Users would be disappointed without them, but they'd still use the product. For our habit tracker, this might be reminders or statistics. For the booking system, maybe SMS confirmations or online payment. Important? Yes. Required for day one? No.

Could-haves are nice touches that polish the experience. Dark mode. Gamification elements. Social sharing. Users might appreciate them, but nobody chose your product because of them. They're the features you add when the core is solid and you're looking for ways to delight.

Won't-haves are the silent heroes of successful projects. These are features you've consciously decided not to build, at least not now. AI recommendations. Multi-language support. Enterprise team features. Putting them explicitly in the won't-have category prevents scope creep and awkward conversations later. "We discussed that in planning and decided to defer it to version two."

The Art of Honest Prioritization

Here's where most teams struggle. It's easy to understand the categories. It's hard to actually use them.

Start by dumping every idea onto the table. Features, requirements, nice-to-haves, wild dreams. Everything. Don't filter yet. Just capture.

Then ask the brutal question: What's the absolute minimum needed for someone to pay for this? Not what would make it great. Not what competitors have. What would make it useful enough that someone would exchange money for it? Those are your must-haves, and there shouldn't be many. Five to seven for a typical project. If you have twenty must-haves, you're not prioritizing; you're just making a list with labels.

For everything else, the questions shift. Would users be disappointed without this? Should-have. Would users think it's a nice touch? Could-have. Is this scope creep disguised as a requirement? Won't-have.

A good rule of thumb: Must-haves should consume about 60% of your effort. Should-haves get 20%. Could-haves get 15%. Won't-haves get documented but not built. If your must-haves already exceed your budget, you have two options: get more budget or be more brutal about what's truly essential.

Where Teams Go Wrong

The most common failure mode is the must-have explosion. Stakeholders resist putting their pet features in lower categories. "But users will expect this!" Maybe. But expecting something and being unable to use the product without it are different things.

The second failure is an empty won't-have list. If you're not explicitly declining any features, you're not really prioritizing. You're just hoping everything fits. It won't. Scope creep doesn't announce itself. It sneaks in through features that seem small but add up.

The third failure is prioritizing from your perspective instead of the user's. What you think is important might not match what they actually need. A feature that seems essential to your business model might be irrelevant to the person using the software daily. User stories help here. When you prioritize from the user's perspective, the important stuff becomes clearer.

The final failure is treating MoSCoW as a one-time exercise. Requirements shift as you learn. What seemed like a must-have might prove unnecessary. What seemed like a could-have might become critical. Revisit your priorities regularly, especially after user feedback starts flowing.

A Story of Scissors

Let me give you a concrete example. Imagine you're building a booking system for a hair salon. The owner has ideas. The staff has opinions. You could build features for months.

But strip it down to essentials. Customers need to book appointments. That's a must-have. The owner needs to see what's booked. Also a must-have. Customers need confirmation that their booking worked. Must-have.

Now it gets interesting. SMS reminders? They significantly reduce no-shows, which matters for revenue. But the salon functioned before without them. Should-have. Online payment? Convenient, but customers can pay when they arrive. Should-have.

Let customers cancel their own appointments? Nice, but they can call. Could-have. Instagram integration? Marketing sugar. Could-have.

AI-powered time suggestions? Overkill for a single salon. Won't-have. Multi-location support? They only have one location. Won't-have.

Now you have a roadmap. Build the must-haves first. Launch. Get feedback. Then add should-haves based on what users actually want. The could-haves can wait until the core is polished. And the won't-haves stay documented so nobody asks about them six months later.

The Deeper Truth

MoSCoW isn't really about features. It's about focus.

Every successful product started narrower than its founders wanted. They had grand visions, but they shipped something small and useful first. The features came later, informed by real usage rather than hypothetical requirements.

Prioritization is the discipline of saying no so you can say yes to what matters. It's uncomfortable. It requires defending decisions. It means telling stakeholders their favorite feature will wait. But the alternative is worse: projects that never ship, budgets that disappear into endless development, teams that burn out chasing a moving target.

The best software teams I've seen treat prioritization as a skill to practice, not a chore to finish. They revisit their MoSCoW breakdown regularly. They celebrate features moved to won't-have as much as features moved to must-have. They understand that building less is often the path to delivering more.

Try Max and let us guide you through prioritization that actually leads to shipped software.