ICE Framework
The ICE Prioritization Framework helps you evaluate and rank ideas based on Impact, Confidence, and Ease of implementation. This simple scoring system identifies quick wins and maximizes ROI with limited resources.
What is ICE prioritization
ICE stands for Impact, Confidence, and Ease. Teams use this framework to evaluate projects, features, and marketing initiatives when seeking rapid growth with limited resources.
Start with a free Ducalis ICE template. Fully customizable.
ICE criteria
Impact
Impact measures how much a feature or initiative will advance your objective. Define what "impact" means for your team and apply it consistently across all items. Don't evaluate Item A for activation impact and Item B for retention impact—this scatters efforts and delays results.
Answers the question: How impactful is this solution to our objective?
Scale: Numbers from 1 to 10 (originally). We recommend Fibonacci: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.
Confidence
Confidence validates or challenges your Impact and Ease estimates. This criterion prevents emotional bias in prioritization. High Confidence scores mean you have data to support your estimates. Low scores signal guesswork.
Answers the question: How sure am I in my Impact and Ease scores? How sure am I this works as expected?
Scale: Numbers from 1 to 10 (originally). We recommend Fibonacci: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.
Ease
Ease measures how quickly and cheaply you can implement the solution. Unlike frameworks that focus on effort or complexity (negative factors), ICE flips the perspective—easier tasks score higher.
Answers the question: How easy is this solution to develop and launch? How fast can we get results?
Scale: Numbers from 1 to 10 (originally). We recommend Fibonacci: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.
How to calculate ICE score
- Add Impact + Confidence + Ease scores.
- Divide the sum by 3.
Drawbacks and solutions
ICE is often criticized for subjectiveness—scores can be manipulated, and different people score items differently.
Response to subjectiveness: Any framework can be manipulated if someone wants to skew results. The real question is: Why prioritize if you've already decided the outcome? ICE works when teams prioritize honestly.
Response to scoring variation: Different people estimating differently becomes a strength when you aggregate their scores. Multiple studies show that averaging a group's estimates produces astonishingly accurate results. With tools like Ducalis, this is automatic—team members score independently, and the system calculates the average. No meetings required.
Real drawback: The 1-10 scale is too precise. Deciding whether something scores a 6 or 7 wastes time and produces inconsistent rankings. That's why we changed the default to Fibonacci (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13). It's much easier to decide between 5 and 8.
Simplicity trade-off: ICE is extremely simple. This lets you start prioritizing immediately and identify quick wins fast. It's perfect for early-stage rapid growth. But for complex products with many variables, ICE is oversimplified. Don't hesitate to start with ICE—just customize it over time by adding criteria that reflect your unique priorities.
Who ICE is for
Best for:
- Teams prioritizing product features, user stories, or growth experiments
- Startups and teams needing rapid growth with limited resources
- Projects where speed matters more than depth of analysis
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Fast prioritization: Few criteria, relative numbers, same scales
- Focuses on ROI with limited resources
- Easy to learn and implement
Cons:
- Subjective scoring (mitigated by averaging team scores)
- Oversimplified for complex products with many variables
ICE template setup
The Ducalis ICE template is fully customizable.
Criterion 1: Impact
- Name: Impact
- Type: Value
- Weight: 1
- Scores: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8
- Description: How much will the feature positively affect the goals? Would this feature help us reach a strategic objective?
Criterion 2: Confidence
- Name: Confidence
- Type: Value
- Weight: 1
- Scores: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8
- Description: How much data do we have to prove the Impact and Effort scores? How sure am I in my estimates?
Criterion 3: Effort
- Name: Effort
- Type: Effort
- Weight: -1
- Scores: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8
- Description: How difficult is this feature to develop, test, and launch? How long will it take to get the results?
You can add new criteria, edit settings, assign specific people to evaluate, duplicate, archive, or delete criteria.
Read more: Add, edit, or delete evaluation criteria
Evaluation results views
Evaluation results are available in two views: Backlog and Matrix. They calculate priorities differently and serve different decision-making needs. Switch between views using the tabs at the top of any Board.
Backlog
The Backlog calculates weighted scores and displays items in a ranked list. The weight setting determines each criterion's influence (positive or negative). All scores are multiplied by their weights.
ICE formula in Backlog:
(Impact Score × 1) + (Confidence Score × 1) + (Effort Score × -1) = ICE Total Score
Matrix
The Matrix calculates non-weighted scores and displays items in a 2×2 grid. The criterion type (Value or Effort) determines the axis. Scores are not multiplied by weights.
On the Matrix page, Impact, Confidence, and Effort work as filters. Toggle criteria on or off to change how items distribute among quadrants: Quick Wins, Major Projects, Fill-Ins, Thankless Tasks. You can rename quadrants.
ICE for marketing prioritization
Marketing teams use ICE to evaluate campaigns, initiatives, and growth experiments based on impact and effort.
Marketing criteria
Impact:
- How big is the potential gain from this initiative in terms of promotion objectives?
- Estimated with Fibonacci: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13
- Best estimated by marketers
Confidence:
- How much data do we have to prove the Impact and Ease scores? How sure am I in my estimates?
- Estimated with Fibonacci: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13
- Best estimated by marketers and teammates participating in the project (designers, writers)
Ease:
- How easy is this initiative to implement? How fast can we get results?
- Estimated with Fibonacci: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13
- Best estimated by marketers and teammates participating in the project (designers, writers)
Sync ICE scores with your task tracker
You can create tasks directly in Ducalis or upload a spreadsheet.
You can also connect your task tracker like Jira, Asana, Trello, ClickUp, YouTrack, Linear, or GitHub.
Task tracker → Ducalis sync
Connect your task tracker for automatic sync. Set up the filter once, and tasks in Ducalis will always mirror your backlog.
Ducalis → Task tracker sync
If you connect your backlog to Ducalis, you can sync priority scores back to your task tracker. Evaluate tasks in Ducalis, then send rankings to the task tracker to sort the backlog by priority.
