Policy : Prioritise the Highest Value Work

Commitment to Value-Led Decision-Making
Time, energy, and investment are limited-so we must be deliberate in how we use them. We focus on delivering the highest value outcomes first, ensuring that prioritisation is intentional, transparent, and informed by strategic and customer impact.

What This Means
We don’t treat all work as equal. We make trade-offs explicit and use economic, customer, and strategic lenses to prioritise what matters most. Teams are empowered to challenge priorities and reframe delivery scope when it improves value delivery.

Our commitment to value-based prioritisation is built on:

• Visible and Shared Prioritisation Criteria – We agree on and make transparent the drivers of value: customer impact, revenue potential, risk reduction, or innovation.
• Economic Thinking in Planning – We consider cost of delay, opportunity cost, and effort-to-value ratios when making trade-off decisions.
• Dynamic Reprioritisation – Backlogs are living documents, updated regularly based on new insight, delivery capacity, or shifting business priorities.
• Strategic and Customer Alignment – We ensure the work we choose to do aligns directly with business goals and genuine user needs.
• Empowered Product and Delivery Collaboration – Prioritisation is a joint activity-not dictated top-down-and driven by insight and dialogue.

Why This Matters
When everything is urgent, nothing truly important gets done. Teams that chase low-value work or spread themselves thin fail to maximise impact. Focusing on the highest value work ensures that delivery effort results in meaningful progress for customers and the business.

Our Expectation
All teams must be able to trace their backlog and effort to prioritised value outcomes. Leaders must provide clear direction, support rigorous trade-off conversations, and shield teams from distraction or misalignment.

To support this policy, we will provide standards for backlog prioritisation, value scoring models, and decision-making frameworks. By prioritising the highest value work, we enable Better Value Sooner Safer Happier - ensuring we spend our time where it counts.