In an (agile) product development team, everybody has a say about the priority of the backlog features. However, only the product owner decides (vetoes). The product owner has to consider the customer’s perspectives, market trends, leadership vision, architecture enablers, technical debt, team autonomy, and most importantly, her biased opinions. She has to use some processes to prioritize and justify the priorities.
Let’s move from the corporate dimension to the family dimension. Here’s a story that every parent will relate:
Child: Mom – I have too many things to do. I have got Math, English, Hindi, and Kannada homework to complete. Also, I have to prepare for my music exam before the following Monday. I want to watch the newly released “Frozen” movie – my friends have already watched it. I have a play-date today evening – I can’t skip it; I have promised not to miss it. This is too much to do.
Mom: Hey! I want to watch the “Frozen” movie with you too! Let’s do that after your music exam following Monday? I will book the tickets today.
Child: Ok. Yay!!
Mom: When is your homework due?
Child: English and Kannada are due today. Math and Hindi are due tomorrow.
Mom: Ok, let’s look at the homework. Oh, English and Hindi look simple; you have to fill in the blanks. Kannada is an essay that you have to write about “all homework, and no play makes me sad.” So, you will need to spend some time thinking through that 🙂 Math seems to be several problems to solve; let’s do this piecemeal.
Child: Can I start with Math? I love to solve math problems.
Mom: I know. It’s fun to solve math. Let’s just get done with the English first – its due today and simple.
Child: Ok.
<10 minutes later>
Child: Done, Mom! Can I do Hindi? That is simple too.
Mom: Hindi is not due today. It’s easy to get that done tomorrow. Let’s start with your Kannada essay and do some math today.
<30 minutes later>
Child: I have been writing this essay for 30 minutes. It’s boring.
Mom: Ok, solve some math problems then.
<30 minutes later>
Mom: Having fun? Time to complete the Kannada essay; you have to submit it today.
Child: Ok – Grrr.
<30 minutes later>
Child: Done! Phew. I have one more hour before my friend comes. Today’s homework is done. I will loiter around now.
Mom: No, you should practice for your music exam. Only practice makes it perfect. Why don’t you practice for the next one hour, and then play? After your play-date, you can do some more math; you like to do it anyway. However, 8:00 PM is sleep time.
Child: I am tired. Can I loiter around for 15 minutes and then practice music?
Mom: Ok – I will remind you in 15.
<15 minutes later>
Mom: Ready to practice music?
Child: Grr, I was enjoying doing nothing and loitering around.
Mom: Quickly, now finish your music practice before your friend comes. Or. I will ask her to come tomorrow.
Child: Mommy! How can you do that! Ok – I will practice music.
<45 minutes later>
Friend: Hello! Let’s play.
<2 hours later>
Mom: Playtime is over, kids. Have your dinner, and then complete some math; 8:00 PM is sleep time. Remember.
Child: Ok. The playtime was too short.
<completes dinner, completes some more math problems, sleeps>
Mom: Hey, good morning. No school today. It’s Saturday. Finish your remaining homework, and you can play all day. You can start with Hindi or Math. Your choice.
Child: I will do Hindi first. It’s simple. Then math.
<20 minutes later>
Child: Done. Now, I can play, loiter, and do anything?
Mom: Yes, let me know when you want to do one more hour of music practice. We will do that together.
Child: Ok, Mom. Love you!
<After a successful music exam on Monday>
Mom: Let’s watch Frozen.
The story above is balanced prioritization. Mom balances work-play, urgent-important, big-small effort, short-long term, like-dislike, carrot-stick, confidence level, reach, and impact. While she considers priorities, she also allows her child to make some decisions, delegating authority.
Balanced prioritization is an exercise for execution control. There is no use of prioritization without a demand for execution control.
When mom comes to the corporate world, the n-dimensional common sense transforms to the 2-dimensional corporate language: RISE Score, MoSCoW, Eisenhower’s Time Management Matrix, and Prioritization ranking matrix.
Balanced prioritization is part of the backlog grooming process and extends to sprint planning, where the team slices the work items to fit in a sprint boundary.
Balanced prioritization is a continuous process.
In our story, mom did not have to deal with capacity constraints. However, in the corporate world, there are capacity constraints that push for more aggressive continuous real-time prioritization. I will share a (healthcare) story in my next blog.
Digital Journey 