You can have it all, just not at once
We all make hundreds of decisions every day in our professional life. Some swear by making a do-to list and just starting from the top every morning. By doing that, you unconsciously decided that your first task on the list is more important than the second, the second is more important the the third and so on.
As a product manager in a tech company, you are constantly making decisions about which features are more important than others. You have limited resources in making these features a reality so you’re obviously going to work on the most important ones first. Are you going to pursue this functionality with urgency, or when you get to it, or not even bother. Naturally, you have to prioritize. But how do you do that, when everything seems to be priority?
The word “priority” comes from the latin word prior which stands for “First or the right of taking precedence over others. A thing that is regarded as more important than another”. Throughout history, the word priority was regarded in singular fashion, hence first. It wasn’t until mid 20th century when the word priority went from being used in a singular to a plural connotation.
This shift may seem innocent, but in todays business world it causes all sorts of trouble. Especially when you have executives who seem convinced that all three items are priority.
This feature is a must have, that one I have to have, and I can’t live without the other one. All features are priority, I want it all.
Well, all features can’t be first. Making the right prioritization involves tradeoffs, and we have to be mindful and understand that having a feature or strategy or partnership as a priority, means it is most important of all. Once you’ve decided on most important, under whichever criteria you choose, you go on to the most important of the ones left, and so on. Only this way you will have a true priority.
