MoSCoW Method

A prioritization technique that categorizes requirements into four buckets: Must have (non-negotiable requirements without which the product fails), Should have (important but not critical — painful to omit but the product works without them), Could have (nice-to-have features that improve experience but have low impact if omitted), and Won't have (explicitly out of scope for this iteration). MoSCoW is widely used in product management and agile planning to drive conversations about what truly matters. It prevents teams from treating everything as equally important and forces stakeholders to make explicit trade-off decisions when scope must be cut due to time or budget constraints.