How to Prioritize Projects With Limited Capacity
Prioritize projects by strategic contribution, urgency, dependency relief, evidence, effort, and the cost of delaying other work.
Every approved project consumes an alternative
A project can have positive value and still be the wrong next use of a constrained team. The comparison must include capacity timing and the next-best project displaced, not just whether each proposal has benefits.
Create a capacity decision
- Set the available team window.
- Identify mandatory and dependency work.
- Estimate value and evidence confidence.
- Name the displaced project for every approval.
Example: growth feature or reliability work
The feature has a larger upside estimate, but reliability work removes a dependency blocking three launches. Treating dependency relief as a visible outcome changes the order without pretending either project lacks value.
Urgent requests can crowd out important work
Require the requester to state the consequence and date behind urgency. A senior request is not automatically a deadline.
The decision rule
What to record before acting
Rank the next use of constrained capacity, not the abstract attractiveness of isolated projects.
Apply the rule in context with make displaced work visible. Keep the evidence and assumptions with the decision so an outcome review can distinguish reasoning from luck.
Continue within work and business decisions
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