“Is this feature a priority?” We hear this question every single day because building custom software solutions is all about prioritization. I often use the term “brutal prioritization” because it can be brutal to defer things. I didn’t say it was brutal to say “no” to features, I purposefully said “defer” because you don’t really ever have to say “no” to any feature in software. You just have to decide what you're doing now and what can wait until later.

This is very hard for most people to do. They don’t trust the later. The “defer” to them feels like it will never happen. There is something very painful in the “let’s just do this part now, and defer the other stuff to later.” We go round and round about how important that “other stuff is” but we lose track of the most important part of the what’s next and what can be deferred.

You can’t do everything unless you have unlimited time, money, and resources—which nobody has. You have to decide what’s important in comparison to all the things that are being considered. Too often, we get into long discussions about the importance of a single feature when really it's only relevant to how important it is compared to all the other features you’re considering.