Feature Auctions — Overview & Concepts
What they are, why they matter, and how they fit into Lodestone
What Is a Feature Auction?
A Feature Auction is a virtual implementation of the classic Buy-A-Feature prioritization game. Each participant — called a buyer — is given a fixed amount of fictitious currency and invited to spend it on the Features they care about most. Because no buyer has enough currency to purchase everything, they're forced to make tradeoffs and prioritize.
The goal isn't to produce a definitive ranked list. It's to surface perspective, generate empathy, and open up conversations about priority that might otherwise never happen.
Why Feature Auctions Exist
One of the most common frustrations in product management is the stakeholder who questions prioritization decisions from the outside — without ever having to experience the constraints that drove them. It's easy to say "why isn't X on the roadmap?" when you've never had to choose between X, Y, and Z with a fixed budget.
Feature Auctions solve this by giving stakeholders real skin in the game. When they have to spend their own (fictitious) budget, they quickly discover that choosing is hard, tradeoffs are real, and the decisions PMs make every day are more nuanced than they appear.
For the PM, the auction produces a qualitative dataset: a clear picture of what different stakeholders value, and why.
Key idea: Feature Auctions are an input, not an output. Results don't decide the roadmap — they inform it. The PM always retains judgment over what gets built.
Key Concepts
The Auctioneer
The Lodestone member who creates and manages the auction. Any workspace member can be an auctioneer. The auctioneer sets up the auction, invites buyers, monitors participation, and interprets results.
Buyers
The stakeholders invited to participate. Buyers don't need Lodestone accounts — they receive an email invitation with a link to a dedicated auction page. Buyers can be internal (sales, marketing, CS, leadership, executives) or external (customers, partners).
Wallet
Each buyer is assigned a fixed amount of fictitious currency by the auctioneer. Buyers can be given different wallet amounts — this can be used to weight certain stakeholders' input more heavily, or to reflect different levels of seniority or customer ARR.
Feature Pricing
The auctioneer sets a price for each Feature in the auction. Prices reflect relative weight or complexity, not real monetary value. Higher-priced Features naturally require more of a buyer's budget, making them harder to prioritize alongside other items.
The Auction Dashboard
The auctioneer's view of live and completed auction results. Shows spend per Feature, quantity purchased, and buyer participation. Results are only visible to the auctioneer — buyers cannot see each other's activity or the aggregate results.
What Feature Auctions Are Not
- Not a binding decision. Results do not automatically update any Feature, Roadmap, or Strategy in Lodestone. Translation into plans is always manual and intentional.
- Not a replacement for PM judgment. The auction surfaces stakeholder sentiment — it doesn't make the call.
- Not a voting system. Buyers aren't casting equal votes. They're spending a constrained budget, which creates richer signal than a simple poll.
- Not transparent to buyers. Buyers only see their own wallet and purchases. They cannot see what others are spending or how Features are performing in aggregate.
How Feature Auctions Relate to the Rest of Lodestone
| Object | Relationship |
|---|---|
| Features | Features are the items available for purchase in an auction. Auction results do not write back to Features — no fields are updated automatically. |
| Roadmaps | Auction results can inform Roadmap priorities, but the connection is manual. |
| Strategy | Results can feed into strategy discussions, but are not linked programmatically. |
| Documents | If an Opportunity Canvas exists for a Feature, buyers can view it inside the auction by clicking on that Feature. |
The Cultural Value of Feature Auctions
Beyond the data they produce, Feature Auctions have a cultural impact that's worth understanding. They:
- Give stakeholders a meaningful voice without giving them veto power
- Replace "why wasn't my thing chosen?" with firsthand experience of constrained decision-making
- Create cross-functional understanding of what's hard to prioritize and why
- Make the PM's job more visible and legible to the rest of the organization
Sometimes the most valuable outcome of a Feature Auction isn't the ranked list — it's the conversation it starts.
Next: How-tos & Workflows — step-by-step guides for creating an auction, managing buyers, and interpreting results.