Sorting, prioritizing or ordering features and business objectives (or tasks, or bugs, etc) with a large group of stakeholders can be painful. Often the loudest voice in the room gets there way; some people just sit in the corner too scared to raise their objections. After sitting through many of these, I thought I’d post some ideas for improving the experience, accuracy and interaction –

1. Do a quick read through of all the items to set the room to a common definition and understanding of the terms and items being discussed
2. Clearly post the definition of each scale on a poster/whiteboard in clear view. If you are the moderator stand near it to re-affirm the definitions during discussion
3. People can assign the boundary conditions quicker than the middle territory. Often a quick pass through the list solely to assign the top rating or the bottom rating (in, out, will, won’t, etc). This process also warms the group up and gets the blood flowing. It is important that if there is ANY dissent, that item be skipped
4. The moderator should keep an eye on if someone isn’t contributing and focus a question for opinion in that person’s direction when the domain would suit (especially if it is an “obvious” yes or no). This is also a way of making sure a dominant personality gets slowed down in driving an agenda
5. People get better at the process through experience. At regular intervals, revisit a subset and ascertain the group still feels the same way
6.  After each break (at least every 1 hour), re-evaluate the last few items to “re-synch” people’s barometer. Depending on the time of day or the day of the week (or the amount of caffeine here in Seattle) – people can change their votes

The prioritization process is absolutely central to any agile process. Making sure you get accurately reflected priorities with large group can be very challenging.

Troy.