How to handle priorities and communicate conflicting priorities?

As product managers (PMs), prioritization is an evergreen challenge. It’s not just about determining what’s important, but also about aligning teams, managing stakeholders, and ensuring that the focus remains on delivering value to users. Whether you are an experienced PM or just starting, mastering the art of ruthless prioritization is essential. In this article, we will explore strategies and best practices for prioritizing effectively, handling conflicting priorities, and saying no to distractions.

Understanding Prioritization

Prioritization is not about picking the coolest features or the ones that are easiest to implement. It’s about making strategic decisions that align with user needs, business goals, and the competitive landscape. Here are some foundational principles:

Know Your Users

Users don’t care about your product per se; they care about solving their problems or completing their tasks efficiently. Therefore, prioritize features that help users achieve their goals. This user-centric approach ensures that you build solutions that provide real value.

Balance Inputs

Effective prioritization requires a balance of quantitative and qualitative data, as well as internal and external inputs. A useful tool to ensure this balance is the periodic table of prioritization from "Folding Burritos." It categorizes different types of data sources and methods, helping you avoid biases and make well-rounded decisions.

Effort vs. Value

Aim for a balance between high-effort/high-value and low-effort/high-value tasks. While low-effort/high-value tasks are obvious wins, you will also need to tackle high-effort/high-value projects to make significant progress. Balancing these helps maintain team momentum and morale.

Prioritizing the Backlog

A well-prioritized backlog is critical to product development. Here’s a framework to help you manage it effectively:

The Three Buckets Framework

1. Current Users: Focus on features that help existing users complete their tasks more effectively. Remind yourself that users seek solutions, not just technology.

2. Prospective Users: Consider the friction involved in switching to your product. Ensure that your product offers compelling benefits that justify the change.

3. Competition: Understand what makes your product defensible and what areas are at risk. Regularly assess your competitive landscape to stay ahead.

Strategic Bets

Strategic bets are long-term initiatives that align with your company’s goals and have the potential to create significant value. These are high-risk, high-reward projects that can shape the future of your product.

Action Steps:

1. Identify Strategic Goals: Work with leadership to understand the company’s long-term vision and strategic objectives.

2. Map to Product Initiatives: Align product features and initiatives with these strategic goals.

3. Evaluate Potential Impact: Assess the potential impact of each strategic bet on your product and company.

4. Prioritize Accordingly: Give priority to initiatives that align closely with strategic goals and have the highest potential impact.

5. Review Regularly: Periodically review and adjust strategic bets based on new data and changing market conditions.

User Feedback

User feedback is essential for understanding pain points and areas for improvement. Regularly integrating feedback ensures that your product evolves in ways that meet user needs.

Action Steps:

1. Collect Feedback Continuously: Use surveys, user interviews, and feedback forms to gather user input regularly.

2. Analyze Patterns: Look for common themes and patterns in the feedback to identify key pain points.

3. Prioritize Issues: Prioritize issues that affect a large number of users or have a significant impact on user experience.

4. Implement Changes: Develop and deploy solutions to address the prioritized issues.

5. Communicate Back: Let users know how their feedback has been implemented to build trust and encourage continued engagement.

Win/Loss Analysis

Win/loss analysis provides insights into why you are winning or losing against competitors. This information helps you identify strengths and weaknesses in your product and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Action Steps:

1. Gather Data: Collect data on wins and losses from your sales and customer success teams.

2. Conduct Interviews: Interview customers and prospects to understand their decision-making process.

3. Analyze Results: Identify common reasons for wins and losses, focusing on competitive strengths and weaknesses.

4. Adjust Strategy: Use insights from the analysis to refine your product strategy and address any identified gaps.

5. Monitor Impact: Track changes in win/loss ratios over time to assess the effectiveness of your adjustments.

Quality and Maintenance

Maintaining a high-quality product is crucial for user satisfaction and long-term success. Ensure your product is stable, performs well, and is free of critical bugs.

Action Steps:

1. Set Quality Standards: Define clear quality standards and metrics for your product.

2. Regular Testing: Implement automated and manual testing processes to catch and fix bugs early.

3. Address Technical Debt: Prioritize paying down technical debt to maintain a solid codebase.

4. Monitor Performance: Continuously monitor product performance and address any issues promptly.

5. User Communication: Keep users informed about maintenance schedules and improvements to maintain trust.

Saying No

Saying no is a crucial part of prioritization. Here’s how to do it effectively:

Evidence-Based Decisions

Support your decisions with data and evidence. When a suggestion lacks supporting data, it’s easier to justify rejecting it.

Action Steps:

1. Gather Data: Collect relevant data to support your decision.

2. Present Findings: Share the data with stakeholders to explain why a particular request is not being prioritized.

3. Offer Alternatives: Suggest alternative solutions or timelines if appropriate.

4. Stay Firm: Be prepared to stand by your decision, especially if it is based on solid evidence.

Early Inclusion

Involve decision-makers early in the process to align expectations and avoid last-minute disruptions. The RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) model can help clarify roles and responsibilities.

Action Steps:

1. Identify Stakeholders: Determine who needs to be involved in the decision-making process.

2. Communicate Early: Engage stakeholders early to discuss priorities and gather input.

3. Clarify Roles: Use the RACI model to define each stakeholder’s role in the process.

4. Document Decisions: Keep a record of decisions made and the rationale behind them.

5. Review Regularly: Regularly review priorities with stakeholders to ensure continued alignment.

Clear Prioritization

Show a well-thought-out prioritization strategy to illustrate why certain features or tasks are not currently feasible. Transparency helps in managing expectations.

Action Steps:

1. Develop a Prioritization Framework: Use a framework like the periodic table of prioritization to balance different data sources.

2. Share the Framework: Make the prioritization framework visible to all stakeholders.

3. Explain Decisions: Clearly explain the rationale behind prioritization decisions.

4. Document Trade-offs: Record the trade-offs involved in prioritizing certain features over others.

5. Communicate Changes: Inform stakeholders promptly about any changes to the prioritization.

Communicate Costs

Translate the impact of new requests into tangible costs or time investments. This helps stakeholders understand the trade-offs involved in shifting priorities.

Action Steps:

1. Estimate Costs: Work with your team to estimate the time and resources required for new requests.

2. Quantify Trade-offs: Calculate the impact of diverting resources from current priorities to new requests.

3. Present Data: Share these estimates with stakeholders to provide a clear picture of the trade-offs.

4. Discuss Alternatives: Offer alternative solutions or timelines if shifting priorities is not feasible.

5. Seek Consensus: Aim to reach a consensus with stakeholders based on the presented data.

Handling Conflicting Priorities

Conflicting priorities are inevitable. Here’s how to handle them:

Regular Review Sessions

Hold frequent roadmap reviews and retrospectives to reassess and realign priorities. These sessions ensure that the team remains focused on the most important tasks.

Action Steps:

1. Schedule Regular Reviews: Set up regular review sessions with your team and stakeholders.

2. Prepare Data: Bring relevant data and updates to each session.

3. Facilitate Discussions: Encourage open discussions about current priorities and any new requests.

4. Document Decisions: Record decisions made during the sessions and update the roadmap accordingly.

5. Follow Up: Ensure follow-up on action items and track progress.

User-Centric Focus

Always bring the conversation back to the user’s needs. This helps resolve conflicts based on impact rather than internal preferences.

Action Steps:

1. Identify User Needs: Clearly define the user needs that each priority addresses.

2. Present User Data: Use user data to support prioritization decisions.

3. Facilitate Empathy: Encourage stakeholders to think from the user’s perspective.

4. Align with Goals: Ensure that priorities align with user and business goals.

5. Monitor Feedback: Continuously collect user feedback to validate prioritization decisions.

Balance Short-term and Long-term Goals

Be mindful of the trade-offs between short-term business gains and long-term user experience and trust. Avoid decisions that offer immediate benefits but harm the user experience in the long run.

Action Steps:

1. Identify Short-term Gains: List out the short-term benefits of new requests or features.

2. Assess Long-term Impact: Evaluate the potential long-term impact on user experience and trust.

3. Prioritize Wisely: Balance short-term and long-term priorities to maintain a healthy product roadmap.

4. Document Rationale: Keep a record of the rationale behind prioritizing short-term vs. long-term goals.

5. Review Regularly: Periodically reassess the balance between short-term and long-term priorities.

Transparency and Communication

Maintain open communication channels with all stakeholders. Ensure everyone understands the rationale behind prioritization decisions, fostering a culture of trust and collaboration.

Action Steps:

1. Open Channels: Establish regular communication channels such as newsletters, meetings, and updates.

2. Explain Decisions: Clearly communicate the rationale behind prioritization decisions.

3. Solicit Feedback: Encourage stakeholders to provide feedback and ask questions.

4. Respond Promptly: Address any concerns or questions in a timely manner.

5. Foster Trust: Build a culture of transparency and trust through consistent and honest communication.

Protecting Your Team

As a PM, part of your role is to protect your team from distractions and unrealistic demands. Here’s how to do it:

The Umbrella Concept

Be the umbrella that shields your team from external pressures. Ensure that injections from sales or other departments don’t derail the prioritized roadmap. Train your team to follow the process and not take on unplanned work.

Action Steps:

1. Set Boundaries: Clearly define what requests are within scope and what are not.

2. Communicate Policies: Ensure that all stakeholders understand the process for submitting requests.

3. Monitor Requests: Regularly review incoming requests to identify any that might disrupt the roadmap.

4. Enforce Policies: Politely but firmly reject unplanned requests, referring stakeholders to the established process.

5. Provide Training: Train your team to handle external pressures and stick to the prioritized roadmap.

Tangible Costs

When dealing with requests from sales or other departments, translate the impact into tangible costs or time investments. This helps in negotiating and often leads to the withdrawal of non-essential requests.

Action Steps:

1. Estimate Resource Needs: Work with your team to estimate the resources required for new requests.

2. Quantify Impact: Calculate the impact on current priorities if resources are diverted.

3. Communicate Clearly: Present these estimates to stakeholders to illustrate the trade-offs.

4. Negotiate Terms: Discuss potential compromises or alternative timelines.

5. Seek Agreement: Aim to reach a mutual understanding based on the data presented.

Regular Communication

Keep your team informed and involved in the prioritization process. Regular updates and transparent communication help maintain alignment and motivation.

Action Steps:

1. Hold Regular Meetings: Schedule regular team meetings to discuss priorities and progress.

2. Share Updates: Provide frequent updates on the status of prioritized tasks and any changes.

3. Encourage Input: Invite team members to share their thoughts and feedback on prioritization decisions.

4. Celebrate Successes: Acknowledge and celebrate milestones and achievements.

5. Maintain Transparency: Ensure that the team understands the rationale behind prioritization decisions.

Staying User-Focused

Long-term success depends on staying user-focused. Avoid short-term business gains that compromise the overall user experience.

Inclusive Design

Adopt inclusive design principles to ensure that your product is accessible and beneficial to all users. Consider the ethical implications of your design choices and strive to create positive user experiences.

Action Steps:

1. Conduct Research: Regularly conduct user research to understand diverse user needs.

2. Design Inclusively: Develop features that are accessible and beneficial to all users.

3. Test Thoroughly: Test features with a diverse group of users to ensure inclusivity.

4. Gather Feedback: Collect feedback from users to identify any areas for improvement.

5. Iterate and Improve: Continuously refine and improve features based on user feedback.

Avoid MVP Pitfalls

Refrain from releasing half-baked MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) that don’t deliver value. Users need to trust that your product will evolve and improve over time.

Action Steps:

1. Define MVP Criteria: Clearly define what constitutes a viable MVP for your product.

2. Ensure Value: Ensure that even the MVP delivers tangible value to users.

3. Communicate Clearly: Communicate the purpose and limitations of the MVP to users.

4. Collect Feedback: Gather user feedback on the MVP to identify areas for improvement.

5. Iterate Quickly: Quickly iterate on the MVP based on user feedback to enhance its value.

Long-term User Trust

Focus on building and maintaining user trust. Ensure that your product decisions reflect a commitment to user satisfaction and well-being.

Action Steps:

1. Prioritize Trust: Make user trust a top priority in all product decisions.

2. Communicate Transparently: Be transparent with users about changes and updates.

3. Address Concerns: Promptly address any user concerns or issues.

4. Deliver Consistently: Consistently deliver high-quality, reliable features.

5. Foster Loyalty: Build long-term user loyalty through consistent, positive experiences.