This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Laurent Bossavit. Original Post: Responsibility and Priority Feed Title: Incipient(thoughts) Feed URL: http://bossavit.com/thoughts/index.rdf Feed Description: You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all alike. You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all different. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Laurent Bossavit Latest Posts From Incipient(thoughts)

"When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority." This may look like common sense, but let's be cautious about aphorisms, their seductive symmetry and catchiness.

What the aphorism suggests about the nature of priority is that it's relative. Imagine that your team represents higher priority tasks with lower numbers. You know that number 42 needs to be done before number 47. And it's all that matters - the numbers could be 142 and 147, that would make no difference. But they can't all be 42 - if they were, the priorities would be useless for determining what to do first.

So the aphorism tells us something useful. But... not everything is relative. For the same work, you would prefer to earn $142 than only $42.

What about "If everyone is responsible, then no-one is responsible" ? That also sounds like common sense. But sounding good doesn't make it true, or useful. That would only be the case if responsiblity (in some sense) is just like priority, completely relative - if we didn't care how much someone is responsible - we just care who is more responsible.

What's a responsible person ? One who is willing to live with the consequences of her decisions. That's not something I would want to evaluate on a relative basis. I do care how much responsibility I can expect from someone - how many of her promises she's likely to keep, or take appropriate steps if she breaks them.

How useful is the "no-one responsible" aphorism ? Not much. It's just memorable.