Prioritize Relatively

Prioritization is not about labeling work as good or bad; it's about measuring each piece of work against everything else you could be doing. By framing decisions as relative value, you make trade-offs visible and keep the conversation constructive.

When a reliability issue is hurting a measurable slice of users, a shiny new feature that could generate press still loses because it delays the fix. The article shows that the right question is "Is this more valuable than the work we're doing right now?" not "Wouldn't this be great?"

The same logic applies to infrastructure. A team may gravitate toward a visible product surface, but backend work that halves cycle time compounds across all future projects. Only one of those choices will deliver the bigger long-term impact, and relative prioritization forces that comparison.

Priorities are fluid. After you finish the top item, the next step isn't always the second on the list; sometimes you need to revisit the first because new information has changed its weight. Treating priorities as fixed leads to wasted effort.

When leaders use this framing, the team sees why a good idea is delayed instead of feeling dismissed. It builds a shared mental model of value and makes saying no to good but mistimed ideas straightforward.