YES. I love this. A factor that came to mind is when there are (sometimes hidden) conflicts between what teams want to prioritize locally and the global needs of the org. Example: I used to work on the team that owned the build & deploy pipeline. Our director wanted us doing "higher leverage" work (i.e. expanding functionality for the pipeline), but the "low leverage reactive work" we were doing was invisibly helping a wide range of teams deliver better on *their* priorities. That situation seems especially tricky when an org prizes autonomy.
I'm curious if there are heuristics or patterns you've seen work for helping orgs see and understand the impact of local reprioritization on global performance.
Not a direct answer to your question but perhaps a helpful frame: in “Product to Project” Mik Kersten talked about balance between 4 types of Flow Item - work associated with Features, Defects, Risks or Debt. I’ve used this with teams to help tease apart where they should place effort for best leverage. You can use it locally with a single team, but also it becomes a useful frame for comms with leaders and across teams when trying to decide where focus should be placed. IMHO this connects to conversations 2 and 3 in the model John has presented here - you can use it to clarify and enrich discussions about leverage and intent, and in turn it supports better decentralised decision making. HTH?
One of the most real and relatable insights I’ve read recently.
I’ve seen how lack of alignment and shared decision-making can quickly become an efficiency nightmare for teams. When you and your stakeholders aren’t on the same page, engineers end up with a pile of blocked tasks, constant context switching, and a lot of unfinished work in progress.
All it takes is one unclear prioritization to create a ripple effect across the whole delivery pipeline.
I’m coming back to this one and seeing where we have systems vs gaps. WIP limits for efficiency, OKRs for why, ADRs + stack ranked priorities for autonomy. What’s missing and scary is structural support.
My instinct is transparency. Here’s our capacity, here’s their promise to the biz. Here’s where scope is minimal to date but here’s the link to pitch growing. Maybe it could work, but it risks misinterpretation of being transactional, “not a team player”, too rigid.
Any good examples of how to frame this for a large engineering organization ?
Love this! I’m Harrison, an ex fine dining industry line cook. My stack "The Secret Ingredient" adapts hit restaurant recipes (mostly NYC and L.A.) for easy home cooking.
I believe it was worthwhile to take all these years in letting it percolate to the clear and concise article it became! Thanks for sharing, very helpful to put the "prioritization" term into perspective.
This is the kind of articles that makes Substack platform worthwhile.
Excellent article.
I couldn't agree more - great article indeed. Thank you, John Cutler!
A real “seems so obvious now you put it like that” piece. Really lovely questions for consideration at the end too.
YES. I love this. A factor that came to mind is when there are (sometimes hidden) conflicts between what teams want to prioritize locally and the global needs of the org. Example: I used to work on the team that owned the build & deploy pipeline. Our director wanted us doing "higher leverage" work (i.e. expanding functionality for the pipeline), but the "low leverage reactive work" we were doing was invisibly helping a wide range of teams deliver better on *their* priorities. That situation seems especially tricky when an org prizes autonomy.
I'm curious if there are heuristics or patterns you've seen work for helping orgs see and understand the impact of local reprioritization on global performance.
Not a direct answer to your question but perhaps a helpful frame: in “Product to Project” Mik Kersten talked about balance between 4 types of Flow Item - work associated with Features, Defects, Risks or Debt. I’ve used this with teams to help tease apart where they should place effort for best leverage. You can use it locally with a single team, but also it becomes a useful frame for comms with leaders and across teams when trying to decide where focus should be placed. IMHO this connects to conversations 2 and 3 in the model John has presented here - you can use it to clarify and enrich discussions about leverage and intent, and in turn it supports better decentralised decision making. HTH?
Thanks much, I'll check out Kersten's work!
One of the most real and relatable insights I’ve read recently.
I’ve seen how lack of alignment and shared decision-making can quickly become an efficiency nightmare for teams. When you and your stakeholders aren’t on the same page, engineers end up with a pile of blocked tasks, constant context switching, and a lot of unfinished work in progress.
All it takes is one unclear prioritization to create a ripple effect across the whole delivery pipeline.
Oh cool, so I was right ... “Prioritization” isn’t a meeting, it’s four overlapping group therapy sessions held under the guise of a roadmap review.
- One’s for sprint-induced anxiety, where I'm drowning in a sea of Jira 'URGENT' tickets.
- One’s for quietly panicking that we’ll never do “impactful work” that matters.
- One’s for LARPing autonomy while MadLibing a deck labeled “Q3 Stakeholder Must-Haves.”
- And the last ... the real soul-crusher ... is where Finance ghost-plans us like a Tinder match who said “totally down to align,” then vanishes.
Thanks, John. I’ll go kanban my coping mechanisms into swimlanes: denial, bargaining, burnout, rage-emojis.
I’m coming back to this one and seeing where we have systems vs gaps. WIP limits for efficiency, OKRs for why, ADRs + stack ranked priorities for autonomy. What’s missing and scary is structural support.
My instinct is transparency. Here’s our capacity, here’s their promise to the biz. Here’s where scope is minimal to date but here’s the link to pitch growing. Maybe it could work, but it risks misinterpretation of being transactional, “not a team player”, too rigid.
Any good examples of how to frame this for a large engineering organization ?
Love this! I’m Harrison, an ex fine dining industry line cook. My stack "The Secret Ingredient" adapts hit restaurant recipes (mostly NYC and L.A.) for easy home cooking.
check us out:
https://thesecretingredient.substack.com
Such a lucid distillation of hard won experience!
I’m curious about managing and clarifying the impact of successful prioritization on external stakeholders.
E.g.
Using InnerSource can reduce the negative impact on both platform teams and external stakeholders by giving both a pathway to value realization.
I believe it was worthwhile to take all these years in letting it percolate to the clear and concise article it became! Thanks for sharing, very helpful to put the "prioritization" term into perspective.