My Next Word to Retire is 'Prioritization'

I’ve been studiously avoiding the term MVP (not the concept, but the acronym) since at least 2020, since it causes endless confusion.  It originally identified the leanest-possible learning experiments.  Then it morphed into “revenue products we can sell for money sooner.”  Then into shorthand for “just get v1.0 built faster, with no compromises or reduced functionality."

Likewise 'agile' has been watered down and bastardized and stretched past its limits.  Originally, small-a-agile stood for ongoing incremental process improvements and thoughtful retrospection and team-level empowerment.  Then Big-A-Agile arrived with fixed 'best practices' like scrum or SAFe that all adherents in all situations were supposed to apply exactly as written.  Now it's executive shorthand for “I can shuffle the roadmap and backlog as often as I want, without cost or schedule impact or the need for any user/technical discovery.  Just **** get it done.”

I’m ready to add 'prioritize' to my list of excluded terms.  (Not the concept, but the word.)  Here’s why… 

In dozens of conversations with go-to-market-side execs and stakeholders, they tell me they hear it as “prioritize in.”  Said another way, they see their role as bringing long lists of things that their functional group (Sales, Marketing, Finance, Compliance/Legal, Support...) needs to 'prioritization meetings' so that they can get as much committed as possible.  Their underlying assumption is one of R&D abundance, simplicity and being treated as a customer.  “These are really important (to my department or division), so we need to approve them (all) and R&D will build them (all).” Prioritizing in is about getting agreement to do more, especially what’s on my list.

This violates basic laws of physics, however.  When we add up everything on each department’s prioritization list, we typically get 20-50 times more demand than our maker teams can ever complete.  Not 20% to 50%, but 20x to 50x.  For mathletes, that means we will have to say NO, NOT NOW, NOT LATER, NOT EVER to 95%+ of everything on those lists.  And since new requests continue to arrive, saying LATER is usually a nicer way of saying NEVER.

Maker-side leaders (product, engineering, design) mean quite the opposite when they say “prioritize.”  They are trying to prioritize out, quickly pushing the bottom 85% of items out of consideration so everyone can put their best thinking against the top 4 or 7 or 12 items.  With a very short list, both side can match those few against company strategy, guesstimated ROI, technical hurdles, relative market timing, and organizational clout. (Sizing and ranking 100 items is a complete waste of time.)

The reality on the ground is scarcity, not abundance. There's no unallocated capacity or white space.  No underutilized teams idly playing Fortnite and eating bon bons.  No AI pixie dust to speed things up 8x.  Instead, a 5-pound development bag for 100 pounds of requests.

Notice that unclear language encourages confusion and frustration on both sides.  Demand-side execs come to 'prioritization' meetings expecting to add lots of things to the plan; maker-side leaders are quietly screaming for a very short list of strategic items that they can work to completion. 

On the product management side, we’re sometimes trying to be polite: unwilling to use very simple words that will disappoint our stakeholders.  (Or we’re afraid for our jobs, told to be more upbeat and positive, or criticized as “not commercial enough.”)   But IMO it doesn't serve us well. 

What unambiguous phrases could we substitute for prioritize, and get our intended message across?

• “In the roadmap review, any new commitments will be paired with de-committing something already underway.”
• “Bring your whole list, but we’ll focus on your top 3 items.”
• “Our new ERP integration is supposed to bring in $15M-$30M next year.  Let’s only discuss replacements/changes with similar top-line impact.”
• “Marketing needs to present a unified, force-ranked list.  You’ll want to bring that to the CRO, and see where she sorts it.”
• Or maybe even “We’ll be prioritizing out these 40 items so that we can prioritize in the 2 that will best meet our goals.”

Reaching back into classic children’s literature, we can choose from two approaches:

• “When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” (Lewis Carroll) or
• “I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful one-hundred percent!” (Dr. Seuss)

Sound Byte

Clear communication includes avoiding misunderstandings when we can.  Words are tricky: their meanings evolve through usage and over time.  And my attempts to get the world to use my precise definitions mostly fail.  So speaking plainly can be a virtue.