If you work in an environment where multiple projects are being worked on at the same time, you will often be a part of making decisions about what projects should be worked on, and which ones will have to wait.
In discussions with your team members and project teams, you will often get asked “is this particular task/project a priority?” Since you only do work that matters, of course it’s a priority! But be careful, there’s something you should always remember:
Priority is a relative term!
And because of that, you should always answer that question with another question:
Is this (task, project, etc.) a priority in relation to what?
That should be your answer! Then, you can have a productive conversation about benefits and trade-offs. Far too often, if you answer “yes” or “no” to the priority question, you don’t really deal with the issue at hand, which is basically: what do we work on, and what do we stop work on?
Try looking at things this way, and see if it works for you!
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Interesting thing about priorities – they can always change. This is why you should always be re-asking this question and making sure that everyone knows the answer to it.
And it is important to not just say that priorities have changed, but rather tell the how and the why they have changed.