Picking Priorities

What It Covers

37signals cofounders explain their six-week priority cycles for product development, rejecting long-term roadmaps in favor of making decisions close to execution time.

Key Questions Answered

• •Six-week cycles: Teams commit to priorities for only six weeks at a time, then reassess based on current knowledge rather than guesses made months earlier, preventing outdated commitments.
• •Decision timing advantage: Making priority decisions immediately before work begins provides significantly more accurate information about product needs, team capacity, and customer requirements than advance planning allows.
• •Flexible reallocation: When a team member departed, 37signals immediately paused one of two concurrent products rather than stretching resources thin, demonstrating priorities can shift when circumstances change.