The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture

by Scott Belsky

Jeffrey then posed the same list of features and projects to his development and design teams. Once again, he asked them to assign a ranking from 1 to 3 for everything on the list. For this group, he requested that a 1 be assigned to every item that could be done quickly by a small group of people, a 2 for items in the middle that demanded more than a few days but less than a few weeks, and a 3 would be reserved for items that would take significant time and labor to complete, three weeks and up. With both columns filled out for all features and projects, Jeffrey scanned the list for 3/1s—the items that were both hugely important from a business perspective and easy for the design team to implement. The 3/1s would be immediately prioritized because they were specific items that would require only minimum effort for a huge impact. In most cases, 1/3s would get placed at the bottom of the list, as they would take the most people power for the least revenue output. Others would fall somewhere in the middle.