MCP tool: pm_classify_impact_effort

Impact/Effort Matrix

A 2x2 grid that sorts features by how much they matter and how much they cost. The simplest framework that still produces a decision.

When to use this

You have a batch of 6-15 features and you want a visual sort that a stakeholder meeting can react to in 5 minutes. You need rough alignment ("we agree these four are Quick Wins"), not a precise ordering. You're new to prioritization and want a starting point.

When NOT to use this

You need a defensible ranking inside a quadrant (RICE and ICE do this; the matrix doesn't). You have 30+ items -- the visual breaks down and quadrants get crowded. You're using "low effort" as a synonym for "should ship" -- the matrix only works if you treat all four quadrants honestly.

Inputs

  • Impact: How much each feature moves your primary goal. Use the same goal across all features, or the comparison is meaningless.
  • Effort: Total cost to ship, including design, eng, QA, and launch. Person-weeks works as a unit.

That's it. No weights, no formulas, no confidence factor.

The math

There isn't really math. There are quadrants:

            Low Effort     High Effort
High Impact   QUICK WINS     BIG BETS
Low Impact    FILL-INS       TIME SINKS
  • Quick Wins: ship now.
  • Big Bets: plan carefully. Sequence with intent.
  • Fill-ins: schedule when there's slack. Don't make them the main course.
  • Time Sinks: don't ship. If something keeps landing here, ask why it keeps coming up.

The interesting choice is where you put the split between high and low on each axis.

A worked example

Say you're a growth PM at a 50-person startup with 5 ideas for Q3. You score each on Impact (1-10) and Effort in person-weeks.

IdeaImpactEffort (weeks)
Add referral incentive to signup flow82
Rebuild billing UI512
Two new email templates for win-back61
Native mobile app940
Add CSV export to reports43

Median Impact: 6. Median Effort: 3 weeks. Use those as the splits.

  • Referral incentive (8, 2): Quick Win. Ship in two weeks.
  • Email templates (6, 1): Quick Win (on the line, but easy). Ship.
  • Native mobile app (9, 40): Big Bet. Worth the discussion, but it's not a "decide today" item.
  • Rebuild billing UI (5, 12): Time Sink. Below-median impact, well above-median effort. Don't.
  • CSV export (4, 3): Fill-in. Cheap but low value. Do it if you have idle eng time.

Decision: ship the two Quick Wins this sprint. Open a strategy doc on the native app. Park billing rebuild. CSV export is a fill-in for whoever has a slow week.

How pmtoolkit does it differently

The calculator splits the axes using the median of your inputs, not a fixed threshold like "5 out of 10." That keeps quadrants meaningful as your batch changes. A batch of small features and a batch of large features both end up with sensible Quick Wins and Big Bets, because the cutoffs are relative to the batch you're actually comparing.

Common mistakes

  • Using absolute thresholds. "High impact = 7+" sounds clean but means your whole batch can end up in Fill-ins on a quiet quarter. Use the median.
  • Treating "low effort" as "should ship." A Fill-in is still low impact. Cheap and useless is not the same as valuable.
  • Measuring effort in days instead of person-weeks. Days hide the cost of design rounds and QA cycles.
  • Plotting features without naming the goal. "Impact on what?" If the team can't answer that in one sentence, the matrix is decoration.

Try it

Live calculatorRaw .md
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