Priorities

My team's priorities stay clear, even with conflicts like speed vs. quality.

What are clear priorities?

What does "clear priorities" mean in a development team context?

Clear priorities in software development means having a shared understanding of what matters most right now. It's about knowing which tasks, features, or objectives should be focused on first, and which can wait. More importantly, it's about maintaining this clarity even when competing demands—like speed versus quality, or feature development versus technical debt—create tension.

When priorities are clear, team members can make aligned decisions independently without constant guidance. They understand the "why" behind the work and can navigate trade-offs effectively. This doesn't mean priorities never change; rather, changes are explicit, communicated, and understood by all stakeholders.

Why do priorities often become unclear in development teams?

Priorities become unclear for several reasons:

1. Shifting business goals: When organizational priorities change frequently without clear communication
2. Competing stakeholder demands: When multiple stakeholders with different needs exert influence on teams
3. External pressure: Market conditions, customer feedback, or competitive forces driving reactive changes
4. Lack of data-driven decision-making: When teams can't quantify the impact of their choices
5. Siloed information: When priorities are set without full context or cross-team visibility

As one engineering leader noted:

"It's creating enormous chaos and conflict. People are disconnecting from each other and many are feeling destabilized and distressed. I personally don't see any benefit to this approach except that Simon gets his way."

IT Operation Transformation Leader at Software Development Company

This illustrates how organizational changes without clear priorities lead to widespread confusion and emotional distress.

How clear priorities improve developer experience

How do clear priorities specifically impact developer experience?

Clear priorities transform developer experience in several ways:

1. Reduced cognitive load: When priorities are clear, developers spend less mental energy figuring out what to work on
2. Increased autonomy: Clear priorities enable confident decision-making without constant management oversight
3. Better flow states: Fewer interruptions and context switches when priorities are stable and well-understood
4. Higher job satisfaction: Seeing work completed rather than constantly reprioritized builds motivation
5. Improved work quality: The ability to focus on what matters prevents corner-cutting

An engineer manager highlighted this balance:

"You compromise in one area to achieve wins with another team. As long as it doesn't create significant issues, the organization supports this approach. You might say, 'We can accept a slight increase in rebuffering if we gain egress savings in exchange.' These conversations are transparent, documented, and shared across teams."

Senior Engineering Manager at Video Sharing Platform

What happens when team priorities remain unclear?

The consequences of unclear priorities include:

1. Wasted effort: Teams build features that never launch or solve problems no one prioritized
2. Technical debt accumulation: Quality is sacrificed for speed without explicit trade-off decisions
3. Team burnout: Constant reprioritization creates the feeling of running in place
4. Interpersonal conflict: Teams disagree about what's important without a clear framework
5. Delivery delays: Work starts but doesn't finish as new priorities emerge

As engineering leader warned:

"What does that really cost us? There's nothing inherently wrong with making these trade-offs. However, when these decisions accumulate over time without visibility, that's when problems emerge—three or six months later—as a direct result of the choices we made earlier."

Engineering Manager at Software Development Company

How to measure priority clarity

How can we measure if our priorities are truly clear?

Measuring priority clarity can be approached through both quantitative and qualitative means:

1. Survey feedback: Using the Developer Experience Survey question: "My team's priorities stay clear, even with conflicts like speed vs. quality"
2. Sprint predictability: Tracking how often work is completed as planned versus interrupted
3. Decision latency: Measuring how quickly decisions are made when conflicts arise
4. Team alignment scores: Asking team members to independently list top priorities and measuring consistency
5. Retrospective themes: Noting how often "unclear priorities" emerge as a pain point

The Developer Experience Survey provides a direct window into how developers perceive priority clarity, especially when facing classic conflicts like speed versus quality. Low scores in this dimension often correlate with broader delivery challenges and team frustration.

What signals indicate our team might have a priority clarity problem?

Look for these warning signs:

1. Frequent context switching: Developers constantly pulled from one task to another
2. High number of "in progress" items: Work started but not finished
3. Reactive mode: Team constantly responding to emergencies rather than planned work
4. Misaligned perceptions: Different team members have different views on what's most important
5. Quality issues: Corners being cut without explicit decisions to do so

As one product leader noted:

"We're completely overwhelmed because we lacked visibility into another team's plans that directly impact us. It's extremely difficult to anticipate when different plans will intersect and require our team's involvement. We only discover these conflicts when suddenly multiple teams simultaneously need far more of our time than we can possibly provide."

Staff Software Engineer at Payment Processing Company

How to establish and maintain clear priorities

How can leaders establish clear team priorities?

Establishing clear priorities requires a deliberate approach:

1. Create a prioritization framework: Define explicit criteria for what makes work important
2. Implement visual management: Make priorities visible through tools like kanban boards
3. Limit work in progress: Constrain the number of active priorities to force clarity
4. Establish a "priority of priorities": Create a hierarchy to resolve conflicts when they arise
5. Document and communicate: Ensure priorities are explicit, not assumed

Practical implementation can follow this model from an engineering director:

"This approach helps teams respond more quickly. They can determine whether an action should be taken at the team level, first by identifying if there's actually a problem, and second by deciding whether it requires team-level action or escalation. This framework enables rapid prioritization and increases team motivation."

How can teams maintain priority clarity when facing conflicts?

Maintaining clarity during conflicts requires:

1. Explicit trade-off decisions: When speed vs. quality conflicts arise, make conscious choices
2. Regular priority reviews: Schedule dedicated time to reassess priorities as a team
3. Data-driven decisions: Use metrics to resolve subjective disagreements
4. Stakeholder alignment: Ensure leadership agrees on priorities before teams are caught in the middle
5. Team contracts: Establish agreements about how to handle competing priorities

One leader described this approach:

"Leveraging user data signals to inform prioritization makes decision-making clearer. When you have direct feedback from users, it becomes much easier to make informed prioritization decisions—determining what should be addressed first versus what can wait."

Director of Engineering at Networking and Communications Company

What tools or practices help maintain clear priorities?

Effective tools and practices include:

1. Impact vs. effort matrices: Visualize which work delivers the most value for the effort
2. OKRs with metrics related to user experience or value data: Create measurable objectives that help break ties between competing priorities
3. Deep work scheduling: Block uninterrupted time for priority work
4. Documentation of prioritization decisions: Keep a record of why certain choices were made

"We'll move this task into the 'in progress' column. This approach helps make it transparent why we've chosen to tackle this particular action first. By placing it on an effort-value assessment board, we can show that it delivers the highest return on investment, which is why we're starting here."

Agile Manifesto Co-Author at Software Development Company

Organizational factors in priority clarity

How does organizational structure impact priority clarity?

The organizational context significantly influences priority clarity:

1. Decision-making authority: Clear delegation helps teams resolve priority conflicts
2. Cross-team dependencies: Multiple team priorities must be coordinated to prevent bottlenecks
3. Communication channels: How effectively priority changes are communicated across the organization
4. Leadership alignment: Whether executives send consistent messages about priorities
5. Resource allocation: How budget and staffing decisions reflect stated priorities

An engineering leader highlighted this reality:

"Ultimately, prioritization comes down to making choices. If we decide test coverage is important, then we must necessarily designate something else as less important. This trade-off mechanism is always present. While finding additional time without sacrificing other priorities is appealing, it's rarely realistic."

Head of Engineering at Observability Platform

How can organizations balance competing priorities like speed and quality?

Balancing these competing priorities requires:

1. Contextual prioritization: Different projects may need different speed/quality balances
2. Explicit quality standards: Define minimum acceptable quality thresholds
3. Technical debt budgeting: Allocate specific capacity for addressing accumulated debt
4. Outcome focus: Align on what success looks like beyond velocity metrics
5. Customer impact consideration: Use customer feedback to inform priority decisions

A tech leader shows this balance:

"When serving existing customers, we're running a marathon—ensuring long-term stability and sustainability. For new customers, we operate more like sprinters—experimenting rapidly, accepting quick failures, and delivering features quickly. The key is maintaining the right balance: providing quality, reliability, and excellent user experience for our established customer base while being agile enough to attract new users."

Director of Engineering at Software Development Company

The role of developer experience surveys in priority management

How do DevEx surveys help teams diagnose priority clarity issues?

The Network Perspective DevEx Survey specifically measures priority clarity through the question: "My team's priorities stay clear, even with conflicts like speed vs. quality." This provides:

1. Early warning system: Identifying when priorities are becoming unclear before major impacts
2. Benchmark comparison: Understanding how your team compares to industry standards
3. Trend analysis: Tracking improvements or degradations in priority clarity over time
4. Leadership insights: Helping executives understand team-level challenges
5. Action planning: Guiding specific interventions when scores are low

As one practitioner noted:

"We prioritize new implementations for the upcoming quarter. This becomes an effective work management tool that functions both at the team level and for leadership, clearly showing where DevOps resources should be allocated in the coming quarter."

Managing Partner at Professional Services Software Provider

Conclusion

Teams that excel at maintaining clear priorities typically demonstrate:

1. Transparency: Open communication about what matters and why
2. Adaptability: The ability to shift priorities intentionally when needed
3. Focus: Resistance to taking on too many competing priorities
4. Data orientation: Using metrics to inform priority decisions
5. Psychological safety: Comfort in discussing and challenging priorities

By investing in priority clarity, organizations create an environment where developers can focus on delivering their best work rather than navigating ambiguity. As development becomes increasingly complex, with more stakeholders and competing demands, the ability to maintain clear priorities becomes a critical competitive advantage—both for delivering quality products and for retaining top talent.