Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Prioritization for designers and product managers (1st of 3 seminars)
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
Prioritization is often confused with personal productivity or time management, but it applies broadly to resource allocation within teams and organizations.
-
•
Top organizations manage prioritization intuitively even without explicit frameworks, by knowing what matters most and making tough trade-offs.
-
•
Priorities are not legitimate until they are properly prioritized by assigning measurable attributes and values to items for comparison.
-
•
Different levels of abstraction in prioritization require framing, such as comparing streams of small tweaks as a whole against large complex projects.
-
•
Having multiple simultaneous priorities is possible; urgency and value profiles differ, so forced ranking is often impractical.
-
•
Prioritization is as much a continuous process involving revisiting assumptions and adapting to new information as it is a one-time decision.
-
•
Clear ownership of prioritization responsibilities is essential to avoid confusion and ensure accountability in decision-making.
-
•
Confusing prioritizing work items with prioritizing customer segments or goals leads to misalignment among product and design teams.
-
•
Overprioritization without clarity leads to 'lack of a priority' problems, causing teams to spread resources thinly and reduce effectiveness.
-
•
Effective prioritization balances setting strategic direction with practical resource capacity allocation and must handle trade-offs gracefully.
Notable Quotes
"There’s a huge gap between theory and practice when it comes to prioritization in complex dynamic environments."
"Priorities aren’t priorities until they’ve been prioritized with attributes and values; otherwise they’re just items."
"It’s actually very hard to prioritize things that are apples versus oranges without framing them similarly first."
"People often confuse prioritization with sequencing – understanding relative importance is one thing, but when and how you do things matters too."
"If all 50 items are said to be important, you can’t do them all at once; starting randomly is better than stalling."
"Most teams have way too many false priority ones – their number one priority is the lack of a priority."
"Ownership means anticipating, observing, orienting, deciding, acting, and monitoring – there has to be a clear owner for these phases."
"Prioritization is as much about saying no gracefully as it is about saying yes to the right things."
"If you spend 15 out of 62 business days prioritizing and still don’t have a clear list, you’re probably prioritizing at the wrong level."
"What am I avoiding? Asking that every day turns out to be a surprisingly powerful prioritization tool."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Creativity fuels design, design fuels innovation."
Dr. Karl JeffriesThe Science of Creativity for DesignOps
January 8, 2024
"You have to understand how the business actually makes money to align UX with it."
Amy MarquezINVEST: Discussion
June 15, 2018
"The core of it is really putting yourself in that other person’s shoes—it’s basic but essential empathy."
Steve Portigal Chris Chapo Kelly Goto Christian RohrerDiscussion
May 13, 2015
"Some needs proved full-time, so hybrid staffing models are often short term or mixed part-time."
Alicia MootyDesign Staffing Models
September 30, 2021
"I believe there's really no such thing as a boring place at the state of mind."
Ana Maria Montero Barrantes Aditi Dhar Michelle Kaplan Nate Osborne Matt LaurenceThe Authentic UX Talent Show
January 8, 2024
"The ultimate measure is bringing value so people invite you back to work with them again and again."
Lada Gorlenko Sharbani Dhar Sébastien Malo Rob Mitzel Ivana Ng Michal Anne RogondinoTheme 1: Discussion
January 8, 2024
"Our principle is that whatever we build must help researchers avoid becoming a silo."
Sofia QuinteroThe Product Philosophy Behind EnjoyHQ
March 10, 2021
"When things start to go bad, we’re going to pull the plug on it immediately—that helps build trust."
Laura KleinUnique challenges of innovation in enterprises
April 23, 2020
"Existing research repositories die at the bottom of slide decks; that’s why I started Everywhere to rethink how we manage insights."
Andrew MichaelBuilding a Product Insights Team
March 10, 2022
