Prioritize Ruthlessly
When thinking about how a project can be completed you can look at 3 different dimensions:
- scope (how many things need to be done)
- timeline (when you can complete everything by)
- effort (how much work you and others can put in)
If a new feature is added to a project (the scope is increased) then the project either ships later or more work is done in the same amount of time meaning more hours or more people (and more people might not even help). Often times deadlines are hard to move and a so more features often means more demands on each engineer.
Sometimes this is necessary. An important project might require a temporary big push from everyone, that's just part of the job. But it shouldn't be the first tool teams reach for. Instead, when new requests comes in, look to adjusting scope first.
Reaching for increased effort or pushed timeline is often a crutch to avoid the important work of prioritization. There will often be lots of good ideas or features that you or others would like to see shipped but unless you're prioritizing well you can end up putting in a lot of effort without getting much more impact. This is because prioritization forces you to think about why you're doing work and how much impact it will have.
Having this common measure of impact helps facilitate conversations between product and engineering teams. Engineers can estimate the amount of time a new feature might take and have a conversation about whether or not the impact is worth it, rather than just adding more hours to their workday just because more work could be done.
Being productive isn't about doing more work. It's about doing the right work. Prioritizing ruthlessly is a way to protect your valuable time while making sure that you are as impactful as possible.