Three Competing Quarterly Requests with Time Constraints

PRIORITY ANALYSIS

Framework Applied

Impact/Effort/Strategic Alignment with Risk Assessment

Context Summary

• Team: 3 engineers
• Available Time: ~12 weeks (Q2)
• Total Estimated Work: ~8.5 weeks (4 weeks + 3 days + 1 week = ~5.5 weeks, but requests total more)

Recommended Priority Ranking

🥇 PRIORITY 1: Sales Export Button (3 days) - Start Immediately

Impact: HIGH

• Direct revenue enablement for Sales team
• Unblocks sales workflow immediately
• Quick win that builds organizational goodwill

Effort: 3 days (minimal)

Strategic Alignment: HIGH

• Sales velocity directly impacts Q2 revenue targets
• Demonstrates responsiveness to cross-functional partners

Risk of Delay: HIGH

• Sales blocked on every deal requiring data export
• Lost productivity compounds daily
• Easy to deprioritize larger work but high-friction small asks damage trust

Rationale: This is a classic quick win. 3 days of effort immediately unblocks Sales operations. Completing this first builds political capital and demonstrates responsiveness before delivering harder “not yet” messages.

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🥈 PRIORITY 2: Support Bug Fixes (1 week) - Start Week 2

Impact: HIGH

• Customer satisfaction and retention
• Reduces support ticket volume
• Prevents escalations that consume engineering time later

Effort: 1 week (5 bugs, ~1 day each average)

Strategic Alignment: HIGH

• Customer retention directly supports revenue goals
• Support burden reduction improves team efficiency

Risk of Delay: MEDIUM-HIGH

• Customer frustration increases
• Support burden continues
• Some bugs may worsen if left unaddressed
• Risk of churn for affected customers

Rationale: 5 bug fixes in 1 week is high-value work. Support deals with customer pain daily—addressing their top issues quickly reduces escalations and demonstrates that customer quality matters. Combined with the export button, you deliver value to two stakeholders in under 2 weeks.

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🥉 PRIORITY 3: CEO Dashboard (4 weeks) - Start Week 3

Impact: MEDIUM-HIGH

• Strategic visibility for leadership
• Supports executive decision-making
• Board/investor value

Effort: 4 weeks (significant)

Strategic Alignment: MEDIUM

• Valuable but not directly revenue-generating
• Supports internal visibility, not customer value

Risk of Delay: LOW-MEDIUM

• CEO can use existing reporting temporarily
• No external deadline driving urgency
• Dashboard value compounds over time but isn’t time-critical

Rationale: Large effort for internal tooling. Important but not urgent. By completing quick wins first, you demonstrate velocity and build credibility before committing 4 weeks to a single executive request. This also allows requirements to be refined while smaller items ship.

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Recommended Timeline

Week 1 (Days 1-5):

• Days 1-3: Sales export button (delivered ✓)
• Days 4-5: Begin bug fixes (2 bugs complete)

Week 2:

• Complete remaining 3 bug fixes
• Begin dashboard planning/design

Weeks 3-6:

• CEO dashboard development (4 weeks)
• Reserve 2-3 days for any urgent issues

Q2 Summary:

Item	Effort	Delivery
Export Button	3 days	Week 1
Bug Fixes (5)	1 week	Week 2
CEO Dashboard	4 weeks	Week 6
Buffer	~4.5 weeks	Available for scope changes

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STAKEHOLDER COMMUNICATIONS

To CEO - Dashboard Request

Subject: Dashboard Project - Starting Week 3 with Q2 Delivery

Hi,

I’ve reviewed the dashboard request and have a plan that delivers this in Q2 while addressing critical operational needs first.

Timeline: Dashboard development starts Week 3, with delivery by end of Week 6. This gives you the new dashboard well before Q2 ends.

Why Week 3 (not Week 1): I’m front-loading two smaller items that collectively take 1.5 weeks:

• Sales export button (3 days) - blocking Sales workflow
• 5 priority bug fixes (1 week) - Support’s top customer issues

Strategic rationale: By clearing these quick wins first, the team can focus 4 uninterrupted weeks on the dashboard without context-switching. This actually reduces risk of delays compared to starting the dashboard immediately while juggling interruptions.

What you’ll get: Full dashboard delivered by Week 6 of Q2. I’ll share wireframes by end of Week 3 for your input before we build.

Next step: Can we schedule 30 minutes in Week 2 to review dashboard requirements? I want to ensure we build exactly what you need for your decision-making workflow.

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To Sales - Export Button Request

Subject: Export Button - Shipping This Week

Hi,

Good news—I’m prioritizing the export button as our first deliverable this quarter.

Timeline: Starting today, delivered by end of Day 3.

What you’ll get: Export button on [specific location] that exports data to [format - CSV/Excel].

Why this is first: I understand this is blocking your workflow on deals. Three days to unblock Sales is clearly the right investment.

Next step: I’ll ping you when it’s ready for testing (Day 3). Let me know if there are specific export format requirements I should know about before I start.

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To Support - Bug Fix Request

Subject: Bug Fixes - 5 Issues Resolved by End of Week 2

Hi,

I’m addressing all 5 bug fixes in the first two weeks of Q2.

Timeline:

• Week 1 (Days 4-5): 2 bugs fixed
• Week 2: Remaining 3 bugs fixed
• All 5 issues resolved by end of Week 2

Priority order: Please confirm which bugs are most impacting customers so I can sequence accordingly. If you can rank them 1-5 by customer pain level, I’ll tackle them in that order.

Why this approach: I’m shipping a 3-day quick win for Sales first (Days 1-3), then dedicating the remainder of Weeks 1-2 to your bug fixes. This ensures all 5 issues are resolved before we start longer-term dashboard work.

Next step: Send me your priority ranking for the 5 bugs and I’ll start on the highest-impact issue on Day 4.

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ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

If CEO Dashboard Must Start Immediately

Option A: Parallel Track with Reduced Scope (MVP)

• Week 1: Export button + bugs (1 engineer) | Dashboard MVP (2 engineers)
• Deliver basic dashboard by Week 3, iterate to full version by Week 6
• Trade-off: More context-switching, potential quality issues

Option B: Contract/Temporary Help

• Bring in contractor for bug fixes
• Core team focuses on dashboard
• Trade-off: Cost, contractor ramp-up time, management overhead

Option C: Defer Bug Fixes to Week 7

• Start dashboard Week 1
• Trade-off: Support team frustration, customer satisfaction risk

If Bug Fixes Are More Urgent Than Stated

Triage approach:

• Identify any P0 bugs (data loss, security, revenue impact)
• P0 bugs get fixed Day 1, no exceptions
• P1-P2 bugs fit into Week 2 as planned

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PUSHBACK RESPONSES

“The dashboard is the CEO’s priority—why isn’t it first?”

Response: “The dashboard is definitely our major Q2 deliverable and we’re committed to shipping it by Week 6. I front-loaded the smaller items because they total less than 2 weeks and clear the deck for 4 weeks of uninterrupted dashboard focus. Starting the dashboard Day 1 means juggling interruptions from Sales and Support, which increases delivery risk. This sequence actually gives you a better dashboard faster.”

“3 days for an export button? That should take an hour!”

Response: “The core export logic is quick, but delivering a production-ready feature includes error handling, testing across data volumes, edge cases like special characters in data, and deployment. I can ship a hacky version in hours, but you’d hit issues on the first edge case. Three days delivers something reliable that won’t create support tickets.”

“We have 5 bugs but only 1 week?”

Response: “Based on the complexity you described, 1 day per bug is realistic for fixes plus testing. If any bugs are more complex than estimated, I’ll flag immediately so we can adjust scope or timeline. Which bugs are highest priority so I can ensure those are done even if we hit surprises?”

“Can we just do everything faster?”

Response: “With 3 engineers, we have roughly 12 engineer-weeks in Q2. The current scope is ~5.5 weeks of committed work, leaving buffer for unknowns. I can add scope if you’re comfortable reducing that buffer, but I’d rather deliver everything on time than overcommit and miss deadlines.”

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TRADEOFF SUMMARY

This prioritization optimizes for:
✅ Quick wins first (export button, bugs) to build credibility
✅ Uninterrupted focus time for largest deliverable (dashboard)
✅ All three stakeholders receive commitments with specific dates
✅ Buffer remaining for Q2 unknowns (~4.5 weeks)

Tradeoffs accepted:
⚠️ CEO dashboard starts Week 3 instead of Week 1 (mitigated: still delivers in Q2 with better focus)
⚠️ Bug fixes take 1.5 weeks total instead of rushing (mitigated: proper testing, no regressions)

Decision confidence: HIGH

This sequence delivers all three requests in Q2 while maintaining team sustainability and leaving buffer for inevitable scope changes.