Project phase : Mapping and reflection
Transition Lab Step : Mapping of stakeholders, policies and definition of regional priorities
RICE—which stands for Reach, Impact, Confidence and Effort—is a simple prioritization framework for quantifying the potential value of features, project ideas and initiatives. A RICE score helps to quantify the estimated value of a feature or project idea so they are easier to sort when it is time to decide the order they should be worked on.
GUIDELINES: RICE method can help you quantify those big ideas using calculations that give you a way to push back on stakeholder gut feelings in a more reasonable and structured way.
STEPS 1: REACH
The reach factor is an estimate of how many relevant users/target group any given idea might reach within a time period. Here, it is up to you to define who those users are and what that reach looks like.
STEP 2: IMPACT
While the reach score is an educated attempt at putting a number to the question: How many people will this idea affect?, Impact attempts to quantify the follow up question: By how much? Impact is about how much you think an idea could impact a specific goal for an individual. You can use a multiple choice scale to standardize those impact values as much as possible for the equation: (3 = massive impact;2 = high impact; 1 = medium impact; 0.5 = low; 0.25 = minimal). See reference image below.
STEP 3: CONFIDENCE
A confidence score acts as a bias brake that offsets overly-optimistic impact scores. Confidence just lets you put a number to the question: How sure am I of those reach, impact and effort scores I gave each project idea? So, let’s say you have put numbers to the scores of reach, impact and effort but you still feel there are gaps in the knowledge you need to be confident in those numbers. By adding a confidence score, the formula takes that uncertainty into consideration. Here’s the scale proposed (with some examples): 100% is high confidence; 80% is medium confidence; 50% is low confidence; Anything below 50% is a wild card.
STEP4: EFFORT
All the factors in the RICE equation so far are a sum of the potential benefits an idea will have towards a specific goal. Now it is time to factor in the negative factor: the Effort score. This is where you calculate how much time a project will demand from your teammates. The units are estimated as the amount of work one team member can do within a month (so the units are either number of “person-months” or “person-weeks”). In the context of energy transition, the effort could also be estimated in consideration of the current policy scenario and whether it is prepared to receive and incorporate a certain identified idea/priority. Also, estimating the effort needed for the engagement of stakeholders linked to that specific topic could be measured, or how advanced is the knowledge in that field in the region. Once you have estimated these factors, combine them into a single score so you can compare projects at a glance. Here is the simple formula: (Research x Impact x Confidence / Effort = RICE scores)