In 1906, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in Italy. He observed that 20% of the people owned 80% of the wealth.

This is what has come to be know as the Pareto Principle (a.k.a 80/20 rule or the law of the vital few).

The point is that all of the work you perform does not result in equal value being created, i.e. the cost is not always equal to the value, on the contrary.

This is important to understand when prioritizing between which features should be added to a product or which bugs should be fixed, which is something that even Microsoft learnt a long time ago.

Trick is ”only” to know which features and/or bugs that adds most value to the product.

How do you to figure out which features to add or bugs to fix? Do you use any specific method for prioritization? Let us know and join the discussion by adding a comment!