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Software Engineering vocabulary · Agile and Team Workflow

Prioritize

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/praɪˈɔːrətaɪz/verbCore term

In software engineering, prioritize means: To decide which tasks are most important or urgent and should be done first, especially when there is not enough time for everything.

In Turkish: önceliklendirmek, öncelik vermek, önceliğe almak

How it is used

Product owners prioritize the backlog, and developers ask 'How should I prioritize these?' Common phrases: 'high priority', 'top priority', 'deprioritize', 'prioritize X over Y'. British English also writes 'prioritise'.

Example sentences

  1. We need to prioritize the security fix over the new dashboard.

  2. Can you help me prioritize these five tickets? I can't finish them all this week.

Common collocations

  • prioritize the backlog
  • prioritize X over Y
  • top priority
  • deprioritize
  • backlogThe ordered list of work a team has not started yet, such as features, bugs and improvements, with the most important items at the top.
  • blockerA problem that stops someone from continuing their work until it is solved, such as missing access, an unanswered question or a broken environment.
  • estimateTo judge roughly how much time or effort a task will take before you start it. As a noun, 'an estimate' is that rough figure.
  • stakeholderAny person or group that is affected by a project or has a say in it, such as customers, managers, other teams, the legal team or support.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Agile and Team Workflow

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