Hi Guy,

That makes a lot of sense to me. If you are going to use MOSCOW it needs to be used in a systematic way or it is not worth the effort. For example in terms of the MUST category a good measure of the quality of the prioritisation process is manifested by the proportion of requirements in this category.  Ideally no more than 40% and certainly no more than 60% of requirements should be classified as "Must Have".

Too often as you say projects have their scope cut until in many cases you would have to question the remaining business benefit. If there is a reprioritisation required I agree that the only reprioritisation should be only upwards and only then when all the requirements have been reviewed in the round. It may be iin the overall context that some requirements can be revised upwards if there is a large change in scope (with many requirements now deemed out of scope) but this really should only happen in exceptional circumstances.

You would like to think that if enough thought / rigour was put into defining the categories initially that they would stand on their own merits. Certainly there needs to be a lot of effort put into this process to make the prioritisation realistic.

Regards,

Kieran