Fixing Bugs vs. New Product Features

How do you prioritize bugs vs. new product features?

This is a classic dilemma that every Product Manager has to tackle in their journey.

While you'll find all sorts of frameworks, I feel there will always be exceptions as every bug & feature isn't the same. A case might be made either way.

My personal strategy has varied based on the product stage & available development bandwidth.

In smaller teams of 2-3 developers, there's a limited # of stories you can pick.

In this case, I'd first bring bugs & features to an equal footing.

Features were evaluated based on RICE (reach x impact x confidence / effort). I'd use the same for bugs but replace impact = severity x importance.
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The problem? Trivial bugs would get starved indefinitely.

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Thus, I'd grant "buoyancy" points the longer a story stayed in the backlog.

In larger dev teams, however, we had dedicated work streams. This means we'd have a separate team for bugs/tech debt & a different one for roadmap.

Each team's backlog would be prioritized independently, at times by different product owners. Ideally, we'd rotate developers in each stream to level off load.

Finally, it's crucial to analyze bug patterns. If you're bleeding hard in an area, that points to tech debt you need to address.