# Prioritization

Deciding what matters most — ranking initiatives against strategy so the most valuable work comes first.

Prioritization is the act of deciding what matters most: ranking competing initiatives against the strategy so that the scarce resources of funding, capacity, and attention flow to the work that creates the most value. Its defining output is a ranking — an ordered judgment of relative importance.

Prioritization is distinct from sequencing, which decides the order in which work is done. Without a true ranking, a long ordered list still implicitly asks the organization to do everything, because nothing has been designated more important than anything else. Real prioritization is willing to say what will not be done, or not yet.

### Commonly confused

Sequencing. Prioritization ranks what matters most; sequencing only orders the work. A long ordered list with no ranking still asks everyone to do everything.

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