When everything feels urgent, how do you decide what to build next? If you’re a product manager, you’ve likely faced this dilemma:
- Competing stakeholder demands
- Urgent sales escalations
- Endless customer requests
- The pressure to deliver impact now
It’s no surprise that prioritization often feels more like navigating office politics than executing a clear product strategy. In this blog, I’ll uncover why prioritization breaks down—even in high-performing teams—and share actionable strategies I’ve honed while leading and coaching PMs at companies like CVS Health. Let’s turn prioritization from a headache into a superpower.
Lack of Clarity Fuels Misaligned Priorities
The Problem: Without a clear product vision or success metric, every task seems critical. Decisions get swayed by the loudest voice in the room—or the most urgent email in your inbox.
The Fix: Anchor your team with a North Star metric.
At CVS Health, we focused on monthly engagement with our chatbots as our North Star. This clarity let us ask one simple question for every feature:
“Will this increase engagement?”
If the answer was no, we deprioritized it. This focus made decisions defensible and aligned the team, reducing debates.
Action Step: Define your North Star metric and ensure your team rallies around it. Use it as a filter for every prioritization decision.
Framework Overload Can Paralyze Decisions
The Problem: Product teams often get lost in prioritization frameworks like RICE, MoSCoW, or WSJF. While useful, they can lead to debates over scores rather than outcomes.
The Fix: Simplify with outcome-driven questions:
- Does this address a critical user pain point?
- Will this unlock learnings that drive growth?
- Can this impact a core metric within 30–60 days?
These questions cut through the noise and focus on value, learning, and speed.
Resource: For a deeper dive into frameworks that work, check out my Prioritization Guide for Product Managers.
User Feedback Isn’t Always Your Product Strategy
The Problem: Ten users requested a feature—should you build it? Not necessarily. Volume doesn’t equal value.
The Fix: Validate before you build.
One team I coached built a no-code prototype for a dashboard using Typeform + Zapier after user requests. Only 1 in 20 testers used it consistently. We saved months of dev time and focused on higher-impact work.
Action Step: Use tools like Typeform, Zapier, or Figma to validate demand before committing resources.
Stakeholder Noise Isn’t Strategic Direction
The Problem: Sales wants a feature for a big client. Execs have a pet project. Marketing has a campaign. It’s easy to get pulled in every direction.
The Fix: Reframe requests to align with strategy. Ask:
- What’s the root problem this solves?
- Does it align with product objectives?
- Can we address it in a scalable way?
Example: We reframed a sales escalation into a streamlined onboarding experience. Result? 2x user activation—without derailing the roadmap.
Prioritization Is a Habit, Not a One-Off Event
The Problem: Treating prioritization as a quarterly ritual fails. The real world moves faster.
The Fix: Make it part of your weekly rhythm.
- Revisit priorities in a 30-min sync
- Make tradeoffs visible
- Cut scope ruthlessly
One team I led dropped 60% of MVP features after two weeks of research. Tough call, but we launched three months earlier with greater confidence.
Let’s Talk Prioritization
How do you manage prioritization on your team? What frameworks or mindset shifts have helped you?
Drop a comment below—I read every response and love learning from your experience.