Problem Prioritization is Broken
Here’s How to Fix It
Problem Prioritization is the first, and arguably, most critical step, you and your team needs to take before beginning the kind of ideation that happens within a Design Sprint. In fact, the success of your sprints hinges largely on this often under-appreciated, and often botched, pre-step. Here’s how to do it right.
I’ve been there.
Years ago, I was the Director of Project Planning at a medium sized software company in NYC. During any given quarter, I was responsible for prioritizing, coordinating, staffing, and delivering dozens of technology projects. The most challenging part of my job was prioritizing work across our 75-person product organization. I still remember a meeting with our CEO - I was looking for his perspective on how best to prioritize 5 major initiatives the team was currently tasked with. I asked him, "Since the team can only focus on one of these projects at a time, can you help me rank them 1 through 5 in terms of business priority?" His response, "Well, they're all equally important, so 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, and 1e." Sigh, my stomach dropped.
15 years later, many groups still follow the same approach to prioritization; i.e. ask senior leaders what the priorities should be, average the results (based solely on internal business metrics), and then hold your breath when you're still expected to deliver all the things simultaneously. What bothered me was not that prioritization happened arbitrarily and in a vacuum, without input from the team or customers - although this is problematic on its own. What frustrated me most was that, as much as I wanted to make the process better, I didn't have the tools or training.
Integrating design thinking with prioritization
Today, I’m able to draw upon the frameworks & principles of Design Thinking, as well as the skill of facilitation, to lead prioritization practices that are:
Inclusive, across a diverse range of cross-functional team members
Collaborative, in the sense that everyone’s voice is heard and ideas are visualized
Customer-centered, allowing us to remain focused and steer clear of bias & assumptions
Efficient & highly structured, which lead to decisions & next steps
When we lead prioritization conversations with this principles at the core, we can effectively & successfully answer questions like:
Which opportunities are the team and company excited to explore?
What level of complexity are we prepared to tackle?
What’s the company impact and customer value of each opportunity?
(and ultimately) Which top opportunity should we focus on next?
Getting started with prioritization
If you’d like to resolve your team’s broken, biased, and ineffective prioritization process, use our Problem Prioritization Toolkit. It provides you with the tools & training you’ll need to shift these conversations and catalyze your team to begin ranking & tackling exciting opportunities!
Additional resources
Once you get started with prioritization you’re going to get stuck and have questions. Gain some additional insights & support from our team by joining an upcoming Problem Framing AMA.
And in the meantime, start to level up today by reviewing questions & answers from past AMAs.
