Prioritization
Turn a noisy backlog into an ordered, defensible sequence. Saying yes to everything is saying no to what matters—make that trade-off visible.
When to Use
- Too many tasks, conflicting asks, or constant context switching.
- Stakeholders need alignment on what ships first and what waits.
Workflow
- Eisenhower matrix: urgent/important quadrants—do, schedule, delegate, eliminate; guard against “urgent” crowding out “important.”
- Constraint triage: identify the bottleneck (time, people, cash, risk budget, legal, infra); prioritize what unblocks it.
- ICE (Impact × Confidence × Ease): quick relative scoring for product/experiment ideas; normalize scores within the same batch.
- RICE when reach matters: Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort; watch for denominator gaming—keep effort honest.
- MoSCoW: Must / Should / Could / Won’t for a fixed slice (release, sprint); cap “Must” so scope stays real.
- “If you could only do one thing”: forces a single north star for the next interval; everything else is explicitly secondary.
- Communicate the cut: publish what is deferred and why; revisit when constraints change.
Examples
Example 1: Sprint overload: MoSCoW with a hard cap on Must; Eisenhower for interrupts vs deep work blocks.
Example 2: Idea pile: ICE sort, then constraint check—if deploy risk is the bottleneck, favor small, reversible slices.
1---2name: prioritization3description: Prioritization4---5# Prioritization67Turn a noisy backlog into an ordered, defensible sequence. Saying yes to everything is saying no to what matters—make that trade-off visible.89## When to Use10- Too many tasks, conflicting asks, or constant context switching.11- Stakeholders need alignment on what ships first and what waits.1213## Workflow141. **Eisenhower matrix**: urgent/important quadrants—do, schedule, delegate, eliminate; guard against “urgent” crowding out “important.”152. **Constraint triage**: identify the bottleneck (time, people, cash, risk budget, legal, infra); prioritize what unblocks it.163. **ICE** (Impact × Confidence × Ease): quick relative scoring for product/experiment ideas; normalize scores within the same batch.174. **RICE** when reach matters: Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort; watch for denominator gaming—keep effort honest.185. **MoSCoW**: Must / Should / Could / Won’t for a fixed slice (release, sprint); cap “Must” so scope stays real.196. **“If you could only do one thing”**: forces a single north star for the next interval; everything else is explicitly secondary.207. **Communicate the cut**: publish what is deferred and why; revisit when constraints change.2122## Examples23**Example 1:** Sprint overload: MoSCoW with a hard cap on Must; Eisenhower for interrupts vs deep work blocks.2425**Example 2:** Idea pile: ICE sort, then constraint check—if deploy risk is the bottleneck, favor small, reversible slices.
sethdford