{"id":9433,"date":"2016-06-06T09:06:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T16:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/?p=9433"},"modified":"2024-10-22T19:01:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T18:01:29","slug":"first-rule-prioritization-no-snacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/first-rule-prioritization-no-snacking\/","title":{"rendered":"The first rule of prioritization: No snacking"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best lessons in business come in plain English and speak uncomfortable truths. One such example is something we learned from Hunter Walk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During a conversation with Ben, our Director of Growth, Hunter pointed out how fundamental it is to avoid low-impact work. To explain, he drew a 2×2 graph that has since become famous in our company.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The high-effort, high-impact work reflects the strategy you\u2019re deliberately deploying. Everyone\u2019s favorite quadrant is the low-effort, high-impact stuff. But when you continually pick the low-hanging fruit, the branches will stop growing, so this work dries up quickly as your product and team matures. Most startups are sensible enough to avoid the high-effort, low-impact work, so it\u2019s the last quadrant that\u2019s worth talking about.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the low-effort, low-impact work that can kill you, because it\u2019s so attractive. Hunter refers to it as \u201csnacking\u201d. It feels rewarding and can solve a short term problem, but if you never eat anything of substance you\u2019ll suffer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This work is easy to justify because \u201cit only took 30 minutes\u201d. And when it achieves nothing useful, it\u2019s easy to excuse because it \u201ctook us so little time\u201d. This is not strategy \u2013 this is flapping. Do this enough times and you\u2019ll grow a low impact team that doesn\u2019t achieve anything.<\/p>\n

The default position for a smart team without a clear plan is to snack.<\/p>\n

When I see teams at startups rushing to copycat the latest feature of the day, or swapping \u201cSign up now\u201d with \u201cSign up for free\u201d, I\u2019m always reminded of this lower left. Snacks. Even in their best case, these projects are low impact for the absolute majority of companies.<\/p>\n

If you want to have a high impact team stay away from low impact work. Eat, don\u2019t snack.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The best lessons in business come in plain English and speak uncomfortable truths. One such example is something we learned from Hunter Walk. During a conversation with Ben, our Director of Growth, Hunter pointed out how…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"category":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[348],"class_list":["post-9433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-product-and-design"],"yoast_head":"\nThe first rule of prioritization: No snacking - The Intercom Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If your startup is going to survive you need to avoid low-impact work. 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