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“HiPPO” is a fun and relatable acronym from management: “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion”.

The “HiPPO” approach describes the tendency for team members to defer to the opinion of higher-paid or higher-ranking colleagues.

If a product team doesn’t have a system for feature prioritisation, then the “HiPPO” approach becomes the default approach.

The “HiPPO” approach is usually mocked, but it does have its place. For new and young products, it is often as good an approach as any other for working out what to build next. In this case, the HiPPO is the founder, and the founder is typically building the product with of an intimate knowledge of the product domain. If they are doing things intelligently, they are in frequent contact with customers, hearing first-hand what’s missing from the product and what needs to be added urgently.

But there comes a time when the “HiPPO” approach is no longer the best way to decide what to build next.

And that’s when it is time to kill the “HiPPO”. But only metaphorically of course.