Prioritization Formula

The scale is working, not output, and it has to be settled before the first score or the table stops being comparable. Customer needs run 0 to 3 and measure what customers communicated or what their behavior implies, not what the team hopes they want. Business objectives run negative 3 to 3, one column per named objective, written down so the objective's owner could check the score. Effort is 1 to 3 relative points against the other rows in this backlog, never hours: dividing value by man-hours makes the score's magnitude depend on whichever unit somebody picked, and two teams using different units stop being comparable, which is the whole thing the formula exists to provide.

THE SCALE, stated in one line in the artifact and nowhere else
  CN 0-3        0 no signal, 1 implied by behavior, 2 stated,
                3 stated repeatedly or blocking use today
  BO -3 to 3    one column per NAMED objective; 0 is neither
                serves nor harms
  E 1-3         relative points: small, typical, large against
                THIS backlog's rows
  C  percentage applied last, as a multiplier

EFFORT IS RELATIVE, and that is not a rounding convenience.
If the team already has hour estimates, bucket them 1 to 3
against each other. Hours in the denominator make the score's
size depend on the unit, and cross-team comparison dies.

CONFIDENCE IS CUT BY DEPENDENCIES. A result depending on more
than two teams rarely deserves more than 50 percent. Ask what
single event would halve it.

Each field is scored from its own evidence, and a gap in one field never backfills another. A score with no supporting context takes a labeled assumption in the Notes column, never a quiet middle value, because a silent default is indistinguishable from a measurement once it is in the table. The label states what was assumed and the default it came from, and it never cites a descriptor or a source the input did not contain: a number that reads as sourced when the source does not exist is worse than a blank one. Negative business-objective scores are required where an initiative works against an objective. A portfolio where nothing trades off against anything has usually scored objectives as sentiment.

A LABELED ASSUMPTION, in the row where the value sits
  | Court bag | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4.00 | 85% | 3.40 |
    E assumed at 1, no scoping supplied, Effort estimate needed

WHAT A LABEL MAY AND MAY NOT SAY
  may:  C assumed at 60 percent, no conversion data on the
        current signup
  not:  C translated from the high descriptor
        (when no descriptor was ever supplied)

A NEGATIVE OBJECTIVE SCORE IS A REAL SCORE
  | Logo ball line | 1 | 2 | -1 | 1 | 2.00 | 40% | 0.80 |
    BO2 negative, works against the premium-brand objective

Where nobody is named, the field carries Scorer needed rather
than a plausible name from the room. A guessed owner is worse
than a blank one, because it looks resolved.

Raw and Priority are derived columns, and at least one row's derivation is written out in full so a reader can check every other row against it. The test is whether somebody holding only the inputs could reach the same number. If they could not, the field is a gap and takes a labeled placeholder instead. Ranking is ordered by Priority with the tiebreak stated. The result is an indicator for comparison, never a prediction: a reply that promises an outcome because the score is high has left what the formula can actually support.

THE FORMULA, and the derivation written out once
  ((CN + BO) / E) x C = Priority

  Initiative A: CN 2, BO1 1, BO2 1, E 2, C 75%
  Raw      = (2 + 1 + 1) / 2 = 2.00
  Priority = 2.00 x 0.75 = 1.50

FOUR ROWS, ranked, with the awkward cases kept
  | A. Paddle covers   | 2 | 1 |  1 | 2 | 2.00 | 75% | 1.50 |
  | B. Grip tape       | 1 | 1 |  0 | 2 | 1.00 | 90% | 0.90 |
  | C. Logo ball line  | 1 | 2 | -1 | 1 | 2.00 | 40% | 0.80 |
  | D. Court bag       | 2 | 1 |  1 | 1 | 4.00 | 85% | 3.40 |

  Ranking: D 3.40, A 1.50, B 0.90, C 0.80

D leads on an effort nobody scoped. That is not a reason to drop
the row. It is the reason the next step exists.

The inputs are estimates from people with a stake in the ranking, so the last step questions them before the order gets used. The patterns worth challenging are specific: a row that is high value, low effort, and high confidence at once; one team's work occupying the top of every column; no negative objective score anywhere; confidence above 80 percent on anything cross-team; uniform effort, which usually means effort was never really estimated. Each flagged row gets a question its owner can answer in a sentence and a call of Stands, Revise, or Rescore pending answer. The pass never rewrites the owner's scores. It challenges; the owner decides.

THE FLAG NAMES WHAT THE RANK RESTS ON
  D scores highest on an assumed effort with high confidence.
  Ask who scoped it before acting on the rank.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS, asked in order of a flagged row
  1. What did customers say or do that sets CN? Name the source.
  2. Which objective does each BO serve, and would that
     objective's owner agree with the number?
  3. Who scoped E, and against what comparison row?
  4. What single event would cut C in half?

WHERE THIS STOPS. Turning the winner into quarters, milestones,
and owners is a different artifact. The reply delivers the
backlog and names the destination by slug,
how-to-plan-new-product-and-services, because a paraphrase reads
like a handoff without being one.