Getting Agreement on Priorities
The First Law of Priorities: Raising the level of one priority requires lowering the level of one or more other priorities. Otherwise, it requires changing the schedule, adding new resources, or compromising quality. This law is often very unpopular. Many managers would love to repeal it. Here's a typical scenario: The Product Manager has identified "installation user experience" as the number one priority for the next sprint. Meanwhile, Sales meets with a top customer who says he "must have" a new printing feature "immediately." Management decides that this should be added to the top priority list for the release. Obviously, something has to give. Extend the schedule? Add people for design, programming and QA? Or jam it into the existing schedule, using existing resources, and overlook the fact that quality will inevitably suffer? Unfortunately, the last choice is often the road that's taken. Why? Well, sometimes it's hard to say no. When mana