How we set product team goals and priorities at Swarmia

Swarmia emphasizes a decentralized approach to prioritization, allowing product teams to make decisions based on their unique environments, constraints, and close interaction with customers. This method relies on a shared foundation for making tradeoffs to avoid inconsistency and second-guessing. Swarmia categorizes product work into three investment areas: strategic work that advances the product strategy, improvements that enhance existing functionalities, and Keeping The Lights On (KTLO) activities that ensure operational reliability and technical sustainability. Teams are encouraged to allocate their efforts across these areas based on their product's health and to continuously review and adjust their strategies in response to changing conditions and feedback. Prioritization is guided by various inputs, including customer feedback, sales insights, technical debt, and dependencies with other teams. The goal is to make prioritization decisions explicit and intentional, ensuring that teams are not merely reacting to the loudest demands but are thoughtfully considering tradeoffs to maximize value. Swarmia also highlights the importance of reserving capacity for unplanned work and cross-team dependencies, as well as the need for regular progress reviews to adapt and refine priorities.