94 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
94 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
Duration: 30--40 minutes
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## Definition
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Prioritization is the deliberate decision about which work receives
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scarce capacity first. A priority is meaningful only if it changes what
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the team does.
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## Simple Mental Model
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**Priority means what wins when two important things compete for the
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same capacity.**
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## How It Works
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If ten projects are all High, you have not prioritized them.
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Useful factors include business value, urgency, risk reduction, fixed
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deadlines, strategic alignment, dependencies, effort, and cost of delay.
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Priority is relative:
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``` text
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1. Production incident
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2. Supabase migration
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3. Umami
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4. QA automation
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5. RAG POC
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```
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A new top priority should force the question:
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> What is no longer the top priority?
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### Strategic vs Urgent
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Urgent work can consume all capacity while important strategic work
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never progresses. Some capacity may need protection from recurring
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urgency.
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### Example
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Product requests an urgent website enhancement while an integrator is
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committed to an Umami milestone. Do not silently add it. Decide whether
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it outranks Umami and, if so, record which milestone moves.
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### My Company / Real-World Context
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Your team receives work from your roadmap, Product, operational
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incidents, Jira requests, IT/security needs, vendors, and leadership.
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Without explicit prioritization, the loudest request can become the real
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priority.
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### CTO Perspective
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The leadership question is not merely "Is this valuable?" Most portfolio
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items are valuable. Ask:
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> Is this more valuable **now** than the work it will displace?
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### Questions to Ask
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- What happens if we do not do this now?
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- Is there a fixed deadline?
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- What business outcome does it support?
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- What does it unblock?
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- What will move if this becomes priority?
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- Who can change the priority?
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### Key Takeaways
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- Prioritization allocates scarce capacity.
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- Everything cannot be High.
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- Priority must resolve conflicts between work.
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- New urgent work should expose what it displaces.
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- Constant reprioritization damages predictability.
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- Managers should resolve cross-project priority conflicts rather than
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leaving contributors to choose.
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## How It Fits Into the Bigger Picture
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This lesson builds on [[Projects vs Operations]],[[Outcomes and Definition of Done]],[[Scope and Scope Creep]], and [[Milestones vs Tasks]]. It prepares the project system to become
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more predictable and scalable.
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## Related Concepts
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- [[Milestones vs Tasks]]
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- [[Dependencies]]
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- [[Estimation and Forecasting]]
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- [[Capacity and WIP]]
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- [[Risk Management]]
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- [[Project Health]]
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- [[Portfolio Management]]
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