Prioritization: The Hardest Task for Any Organization

Today's topic is prioritization — hands down, one of the hardest challenges for any enterprise managing a wide range of projects and ideas. There's nothing more difficult than determining what to prioritize. It can be contentious, emotional, and complex because everyone wants their project to be a top priority. But when done well, it becomes the key to driving efficiency and accelerating business growth.

The first thing I recommend is adopting a clear "one-through-N" prioritization method. That means every idea gets its own unique priority number. There aren’t two number-one priorities. There's only one number one, followed by two, three, and so on. It’s simple, but it forces clarity.? By doing this, you remove ambiguity and establish a sense of order. Teams can still work on multiple initiatives if resources allow, but everyone should understand which items are at the top of the list.

Measuring Importance: Efficiency and Revenue

So, how do we decide what matters most? For me, it comes down to two primary factors:

1. Efficiency Gains: Will this project improve the efficiency of our operations, and can we demonstrate that it saves us money?

2. Revenue Growth: Will this project directly lead to increased revenue, and can we show the connection?

Sure, there’s a third factor, which is regulatory/compliance — sometimes, you just have to do something because the law says so. But beyond that, it’s about efficiency and revenue.?

If you’re not measuring ROI alongside your idea-generation process, you’re missing a crucial connection. Engineering teams, in particular, need to understand the value behind the work they’re doing.? When they do, they’ll be more engaged and better able to help partner on an MVP that meets the success metrics.? Involving stakeholders across product, sales, finance, and engineering helps ensure that everyone sees the bigger picture and understands the common objectives.

ROI: A Framework for Effort and Return

Everyone wants that sweet spot: low effort, high return. It’s the dream. But more often, you’re weighing medium effort for high return, or even high effort for high return. What we want to avoid is high effort for low return — that’s where projects go to die. Every time we evaluate an idea, we need to be thinking about the effort involved versus the value it brings, and we should include everyone in that conversation.

Start Fast, Then Refine

When it comes to prioritizing, I like to move fast. If there’s a backlog of 25 ideas, I want to narrow that down to the first 10 as quickly as possible. It’s an exercise in gut reactions, and it helps kickstart the process. That doesn’t mean ideas 11 through 25 are off the table, but it allows us to focus on a smaller list and dive deeper into evaluating them.

For each feature or idea, we should be able to say, “If we implement this, we expect X result.” You don’t have to know with absolute certainty, but you should have a sense of what you're aiming for. That’s where collaboration with sales and finance becomes key — they’ll help you define expected outcomes.

Tackling Efficiency and Team Impact

Efficiency is a tricky one. You can measure it in two ways. One way is to see how you can get more output from the same number of people. For example, if I have 20 people processing 20 widgets an hour, and I improve the system so they can process 30 widgets an hour, we can calculate the return on that efficiency.

But it gets complicated when efficiency leads to a potential reduction in headcount. If I can process 20 widgets an hour with 15 people instead of 20, I have to decide: do I let those five people go, or do I find new work for them? This is where a lot of companies struggle — the efficiency gains exist on paper, but when it comes to making those hard decisions about headcount, they hesitate. Ideally, your workload increases, and you don’t have to cut anyone, but that’s not always the case.

Disagree and Commit: A Powerful Tool

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is the importance of “disagree and commit.” Not everyone will agree on what the top priorities are, and that’s okay. What matters is that once the decision is made, the entire team commits to moving forward. You can disagree, but don’t stall progress. Over time, the results will speak for themselves — either we made the right call, or we didn’t. The data will tell us.

The Bottom Line: Prioritization is About Clarity

At the end of the day, prioritization isn’t just about deciding what gets done first. It’s about setting clear objectives and aligning your team around the things that drive the most value. Whether it’s efficiency, revenue, or regulatory necessity, knowing why something is a priority is crucial. And remember, prioritization is an ongoing process. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about being clear and committed.