Workshop Exercises: Understand, Decide

Kano Roadmapping

Place features on a Kano quadrant and agree what ships Now / Next / Later

Illustration of Kano Roadmapping
Run a Kano Roadmapping play

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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. (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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
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This workshop exercise is part of the Workshop Patterns printed card deck.

A collection of workshop exercises that will help you ditch dull meetings and facilitate with confidence. It will help you master the design process and have more productive time with your team. The card deck will be ready for purchase in the end of 2025 and is now undergoing rigorous testing.

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Related plays

Sources