Agile Prioritization

	Extreme Project Management

by Mike Griffiths

April 26, 2011

A uniting thread through the variety of different agile methods is the fact that they all employ work prioritization schemes. While the terminology varies--Scrum for instance has a “product backlog”, FDD a “feature list” and DSDM a “prioritized requirements list”--the concept is the same. The project works through a prioritized list of items that have discernable business value.

Prioritization is required because it enables the flexing of scope to meet budget or timeline objectives while retaining a useful set of functionality (Minimum Marketable Release).

Prioritization also provides a framework for deciding if/when to incorporate changes. By asking the business to “tell me what it is more important than” and then inserting the new change into the prioritized work list at the appropriate point, it is possible to include changes.

It is worth explaining that while agile methods provide tremendous flexibility through the ability to accept late-breaking changes, they cannot bend the laws of time and space.