If everything is important, nothing is really important.
Agile methodology pierces the veil by stack ranking tasks so that the one at the top of the list is the most valuable.
I imagine you have driven past a poorly designed billboard above the highway. Every word screaming for attention! All capitalized, bold, red, at least one tilted at an angle. That billboard fails to effectively deliver the primary message. It's visual throw-up.
That lack of hierarchy frequently happens in web applications. The inadequate structure confuses users. They have no idea where to look!
Likewise, if application development takes a long time to complete, stakeholders around a given project will excessively label other assignments as "Urgent." A few weeks later, the only work that gets done is "Urgent" work.
The only way to get anything done is by marking it as urgent. That is problematic, especially in younger companies where workflows haven't crystalized across teams.
The team's morale will tank because everything on the project is urgent. Even that task is 6-weeks away. The task list does not provide a clear understanding of how to proceed.
If everything is important, nothing is really important.
Agile methodology pierces the veil by stack ranking tasks so that the one at the top of the list is the most valuable. Every task below is a lower priority. There are no categories of importance, rather an exact order of execution.
A precise structure of priorities is indispensable to project development. From the team working on the product to the final customer, everyone's experience will improve if everyone knows where to look first.
