Prioritization is the process of determining the relative importance, order, or sequence of tasks, activities, initiatives, or resources based on their value, urgency, impact, or alignment with goals and objectives. It involves systematically evaluating and ranking items to identify those that should be given higher priority and allocated resources accordingly.

Prioritization helps individuals, teams, or organizations focus their efforts on the most critical or valuable areas, ensuring that limited resources are allocated effectively and efficiently. It involves making informed decisions and trade-offs to optimize outcomes, meet deadlines, and achieve desired results.

Clearly prioritizing the work performed by a product engineering is crucial for several reasons:

1. Resource Optimization: Prioritization ensures that the limited resources, including time, talent, and budget, are allocated effectively. It helps prevent resource wastage on low-impact or low-value tasks, enabling the team to focus on the initiatives that deliver the most significant business value and impact.
2. Structure Decision Making: Prioritization is a structured framework that reduces the risk of constantly shifting priorities and firefighting. When priorities are clearly defined and aligned on by leadership, there’s should be no question as to what the team should work on next. The team can focus on executing planned work without constant disruptions. This stability and clarity in prioritization reduce stress, improve productivity, and enable the team to work more efficiently toward achieving strategic goals instead of constantly reacting to immediate demands.
3. Time-to-Market: Prioritization allows the team to deliver value to customers and the market more efficiently. By focusing on high-priority work, the team can accelerate time-to-market, releasing valuable features and enhancements in a timely manner. This enables the business to seize market opportunities, gain a competitive edge, and generate revenue sooner.
4. Customer Satisfaction: Prioritizing work based on customer needs and feedback ensures that the team is addressing the most critical pain points and fulfilling customer expectations. It helps enhance the customer experience, leading to higher satisfaction, retention, and loyalty. Prioritization also allows for iterative development and the incorporation of user feedback, ensuring that the product evolves based on real-world usage and user insights.

Who Owns Prioritization?

Ownership of Roadmap prioritization is a collaborative effort involving stakeholders across the organization. Roles and responsibilities vary for each stakeholder. If a specific role doesn’t exist within the organization, seek to identify who is playing that role because the responsibilities still exist.

The following outlines each of the roles and responsibilities that contribute to the process:

1. Product Management brings a deep understanding of customer needs, market trends, and business objectives. They contribute by defining the product strategy, gathering user feedback, conducting market research, and identifying features that align with the product vision. They also assess the potential value, impact, and feasibility of initiatives, making data-driven decisions to prioritize items on the roadmap.
   1. Accountable for ensuring that the Roadmap is consistently prioritized.
   2. Accountable for ensuring that all stakeholder voices are heard in the process.
   3. Responsible for ensuring that all features and initiatives have clearly articulated the business need its addressing. Product partners with various stakeholders to accomplish this.
2. Engineering evaluates the complexity, effort, and technical feasibility of proposed initiatives. Their contribution helps determine the required resources, dependencies, and potential risks associated with each item. The engineering team collaborates with product management to ensure a balance between technical considerations and business priorities.
   1. Responsible for ensuring that all aspects of the technical assessment are accurately accounted for when assessing priority.
   2. Accountable for delivering on the technical evaluation criteria that is prioritized highly. (e.g. Performance, Security, etc)
3. Sales and Customer Support/Customer Success represent the voice of the customer during prioritization. They provide feedback on customer pain points, feature requests, and market demands. Their input helps identify initiatives that address customer needs and improve customer satisfaction. Sales teams also contribute by highlighting opportunities to capture new markets or generate revenue through specific features or enhancements.
   1. Responsible for accurately communicating what is, and is not, important to the customer base.
   2. Accountable for delivering, post-launch, on the go-to-market evaluation criteria that is prioritized highly. (e.g. Revenue, Market Demand, etc.)
4. Marketing provides insights into market trends, competitive analysis, and customer segmentation. They assess the market positioning and differentiation of proposed initiatives, helping prioritize features that align with the target market and attract potential customers. Marketing teams also contribute to go-to-market strategies, messaging, and promotion plans based on the prioritized roadmap.
   1. Responsible for ensuring the business has a clear understanding of the competitive landscape to inform the prioritization process.
   2. Accountable for ensuring that new features are shared appropriately with the market post-launch.
5. Executives and Leadership provide overall guidance and strategic direction. They align the product roadmap with broader organizational goals and priorities. Their contribution involves setting the strategic vision, establishing priorities, and providing the necessary resources and support for successful execution. Executives also play a crucial role in final decision-making and resolving conflicts that may arise during the prioritization process.
   1. Accountable for ensuring that all teams are operating and prioritizing in alignment with business goals.

Ineffective Prioritization Methods

May companies fall into the trap of having no formally defined prioritization process. Make no mistake though, there is ALWAYS a prioritization process at work, it just is likely to be grossly ineffective which inhibits our teams from delivering the highest value work that they can.

Here are some of the most common ineffective prioritization methods:

1. HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion): Relying solely on the opinion or preferences of the highest-ranking person in the organization can lead to biased decision-making and prioritization that does not align with customer needs or market demands.
2. Firefighting Approach: Reactively responding to urgent requests or immediate issues without considering the long-term strategic goals can result in a scattered and unfocused approach to prioritization. This can lead to missed opportunities and a lack of cohesive progress.