MoSCoW prioritization
MoSCoW prioritization is a project-management framework that classifies requirements into four buckets — Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have — to align scope on what's truly essential.
In depth
MoSCoW was developed by Dai Clegg at Oracle UK in the 1990s and adopted as a core technique of the DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method) framework. The four labels force a team to make scope trade-offs explicit and surface low-priority items that might otherwise sneak into the build.
MoSCoW is most useful at the start of a release cycle for backlog grooming and at the end for go/no-go decisions. The 'Won't have' category is critical and often skipped — being explicit about what's NOT in scope is the whole point.
OpenCharts ships MoSCoW templates as 4-quadrant whiteboards and supports AI-assisted classification of a backlog list.
Also known as
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