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Prioritising

Defining the Minimum Viable Product, planning development priorities or schedules.

Also Known As

Related

Addresses / Mitigates

  • Schedule Risk: Helps in focusing on high-priority tasks.
  • Market Risk: Ensures that the most valuable features and opportunities are addressed first.
  • Funding Risk: Allocates resources efficiently to high-impact areas.
  • Deadline Risk: In order to hit a deadline, you can de-prioritise less important work.

Attendant Risks

  • Reliability Risk: Prioritization can create dependencies on specific tasks or features.
  • Market Risk: Prioritising a single client or narrowing scope reduces diversification, increasing exposure to changes in the market.
  • Deadline Risk: Establishing an order of events often places deadlines on the earlier events completing or the later events starting.

Used By

  • Lean Software Development: Lean uses Kanban to prioritize and manage work.
  • Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe): SAFe uses Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) to prioritise work by economic value.
  • Scrum: Scrum prioritizes work during sprint planning and focuses on delivering a potentially shippable product increment.
  • TameFlow: Work is prioritised based on constraint capacity and buffer status, focusing on what matters most.
  • Waterfall Development: Waterfall involves detailed project planning and management, which includes prioritizing tasks to ensure the project progresses according to schedule and within budget.

Description​

"Prioritization is the activity that arranges items or activities in order of importance relative to each other." - Prioritization, Wikipedia

Prioritising involves deciding what to build first—from identifying the MVP to backlog refinement to sprint planning. You can prioritise by largest risk mitigation, biggest win for least effort, or dependency order. By prioritising, you Meet Reality sooner, more frequently, and in smaller chunks. Delivery can range from Big Bang (all at once) to Continuous Delivery (one piece at a time).

Variations​

Prioritisation MethodDescriptionReference
MoSCoWCategorising requirements as Must/Should/Could/Won't have.MoSCoW, Wikipedia
Weighted ScoringScoring items against criteria to determine priority order.Weighted Scoring, ProductPlan
Value vs EffortPlotting items by value delivered against effort required.Value vs Complexity, Wikipedia

See Also​

Used By​

Lean Software Development

Lean Software Development

An Agile software development methodology that emphasizes eliminating waste, building quality in, creating knowledge, deferring commitment, delivering fast, respecting people, and optimizing the whole.

Why: Lean uses Kanban to prioritize and manage work.

Uses:
  • Kanban
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

A set of organization and workflow patterns for scaling lean and agile practices across large enterprises.

Why: SAFe uses Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) to prioritise work by economic value.

Uses:
  • WSJF
  • Economic Prioritisation
Scrum

Scrum

An Agile framework for managing and completing complex projects.

Why: Scrum prioritizes work during sprint planning and focuses on delivering a potentially shippable product increment.

Uses:
  • Sprint Planning
  • Sprint Goal
  • Product Backlog Refinement
TameFlow

TameFlow

A management approach for knowledge work that integrates Theory of Constraints, Kanban, and Agile principles to optimize the flow of work, information, and value.

Why: Work is prioritised based on constraint capacity and buffer status, focusing on what matters most.

Uses:
  • Drum-Buffer-Rope
  • Buffer Management
Waterfall Development

Waterfall Development

A traditional linear and sequential development methodology where each phase must be completed before moving on to the next.

Why: Waterfall involves detailed project planning and management, which includes prioritizing tasks to ensure the project progresses according to schedule and within budget.

Uses:
  • Project Management and Planning