Roadmaps shouldn't run on whoever argues loudest.
Most product prioritization still happens in spreadsheets, meetings, and opinion loops. Here is what that actually costs — and where a spreadsheet is still the right answer.
Three failure modes of spreadsheet prioritization
Spreadsheets aren't bad at arithmetic. They're bad at the three things that make a prioritization decision hold up a quarter later.
Inconsistent scoring
Different stakeholders apply different logic to the same scale, so a 7 from one team is not a 7 from another — and nothing in the sheet makes that visible.
Scattered context
Research, customer feedback, and the reasoning behind a number live in three other tools, so the evidence for a score is never where the score is.
Weak decision memory
Teams remember what they chose but not why. The numbers survive an edit; the argument that produced them does not, which is why the same debate reopens every quarter.
Built for prioritization, not just tracking
Four categories of tool get used for this job. They're genuinely different, and none of them is bad at everything:
| Capability | Tarazu | Spreadsheets | Roadmap tools | Generic AI assistants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Framework-based scoring | Built in, with RICE on a normalized 1–100 scale | Whatever you build by hand, per sheet | Sometimes, usually as an add-on field | Will compute a score if you describe one |
| Visual tradeoff analysis | Effort × impact map with labeled quadrants | Only if you build the chart yourself | Rarely — timelines, not tradeoffs | No persistent view |
| Explainable AI recommendations | Reasoning shown, always editable, never auto-applied | None | Increasingly, quality varies | Yes, but ungrounded in your backlog |
| Strategy context | Product context and prior feedback feed the scoring | Lives in a different document | Usually a separate module | Only what you paste into the prompt |
| Decision history | Score history, revert, and a recorded rationale | Lost on the next edit | Tracks status changes, not reasoning | None — the conversation is the record |
The pattern worth noticing: spreadsheets and generic AI assistants both lose the record. A spreadsheet keeps the numbers and drops the argument; a chat assistant keeps the argument until the conversation scrolls away. Roadmap tools keep a great deal, but what they keep is status — what state a thing is in, not why it was chosen over something else.
When a spreadsheet is the right answer
Genuinely, often. Do not adopt a tool for a problem you don't have:
- Fewer than about fifteen candidates. Below that, you can hold the whole set in your head, and the ranking isn't the hard part.
- One decision-maker. Most of what Tarazu adds is about making a decision legible to other people. If that's not your problem, it's overhead.
- A one-off call. Decision memory only pays off when there's a next decision that should learn from this one.
- A genuinely bespoke scoring model. If your organisation weighs regulatory exposure and contractual commitments, a spreadsheet expresses that immediately and no framework tool will.
The case for something else starts when the same spreadsheet gets reopened every quarter by people who weren't there when the numbers were written.
What you carry over
Import a CSV; export a CSV. Your columns map onto reach, impact, confidence, and effort, with common aliases recognised automatically and out-of-range values clamped rather than rejected. Ranked output exports back to CSV, and the priority view exports to PDF.
This matters more than it sounds. A prioritization tool you cannot leave is a tool that can stop earning its place and keep it anyway — so the exit being cheap is part of the argument for walking in.
If you want the mechanics before you move anything, the RICE guide covers the scoring model and where it breaks down, and how it works walks the full loop.
Bring your spreadsheet.
Import a CSV and see the same backlog as a ranked list and a tradeoff map. Free, no account needed.