Workshop Exercises: Understand, Decide
Kano Roadmapping
Place features on a Kano quadrant and agree what ships Now / Next / Later
Why: Expose Basic, Performance and Excitement needs, then balance delight against effort
When: After a Kano survey **or** when a team needs a quick, evidence-backed roadmap slice
This workshop, based on the Kano Model, lets any product team turn Kano insights (or collective intuition) into a lean, defensible roadmap in under 90 minutes—all with nothing more than sticky notes and a whiteboard.
Run this lean workshop whenever you need to transform Kano insights—or informed intuition—into a defensible, time-boxed roadmap. Repeat every 6-12 months, as today’s Excitement features will inevitably drift toward Basic expectations.
Repeat every 6–12 months (or after a fresh Kano survey) because Excitement items tend to become Performance and eventually Basic needs as user expectations rise.
Instructions for running this play
- Quick prep
Gather one colour of sticky notes, markers, a large whiteboard or wall, and a timer. No prior feature list is needed.
(Optional) Export Kano survey results if they exist. - Draw the Kano quadrant
On the whiteboard draw two arrows: vertical labelled USER SATISFACTION, horizontal labelled FUNCTIONALITY. Mark the four areas: 1) Excitement Needs, 2) Performance Needs, 3) Basic Needs, and 4) Indifferent Needs. - Compile features (10 min)
As a group list up to 20 candidate features for the next release cycle. Write one feature per sticky and place them beside the board. - (Optional) Recap survey evidence (5 min)
If Kano data are available, briefly show category counts or indices so everyone sees the evidence. Skip when no survey exists. - Silent placement (15 min)
Each participant places every sticky in the quadrant where they believe it belongs. If survey data exist, the facilitator adds a small coloured dot to any sticky after placement to show its data-derived category. - Discuss outliers (10 min)
Debate only notes that landed far apart or on an axis. Move a sticky only if the group agrees based on evidence or strong rationale. - Prioritise & tag actions (20 min)
Mark stickies NOW if they are Basic or high-pain Performance items, NEXT for feasible Excitement or Performance improvements, LATER for the rest. - Commit & capture (5 min)
Photograph the finished board. The product owner logs every NOW item in the backlog today and schedules refinement for NEXT items.
Every card deck includes workshop patterns, so your team can put the methods to work in your next session.
Running behavioral design workshops? The Persuasive Patterns Workshop Playbook (PDF) shows you how to design and run them.
Browse the card decksRelated plays
- How to Run a Kano Analysis by Learning Loop
- Use the Kano model to prioritize a product roadmap by Conceptboard