Orange and Red Priorities Planning
Leaders name the non-negotiable 'big rocks' up front, then teams plan around them
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 83%
A top-down-first planning adjustment for large organizations. Instead of teams planning bottom-up and leaders reshuffling their work afterward, leadership states the big rocks — the highest-priority items that must get done — honestly and up front (the 'red' and 'orange' priorities), and teams plan the rest of their work around those fixed commitments.
Origin
An iteration Hari Srinivasan introduced to LinkedIn's product planning, part of his habit of tweaking planning and product-review processes every quarter or six months.
Core principles
- 01Bottom-up planning followed by top-down reshuffling wastes team effort and erodes trust
- 02Leaders naming the must-do priorities first creates honesty and clarity
- 03A short, ranked list of big rocks anchors the rest of the plan
- 04Get the non-negotiables done first, then fill in around them
How to run it
- 1
Leadership declares the big rocks first
Before teams plan, leaders state the handful of highest-priority items ('red' and 'orange') that absolutely must get done, honestly and up front.
Pro tip Being honest that these are the priorities up front is what relieves friction later.
Watch out The old pattern — teams plan bottom-up, then a leader shuffles it around afterward — wastes work and breeds cynicism.
- 2
Commit to finishing the big rocks first
Sequence so the top-priority items get done first, before lower-priority work competes for capacity.
- 3
Let teams plan the remainder around them
With the fixed commitments known, teams plan their remaining work bottom-up around the declared priorities.
In the wild
Planning had struggled as the org grew and the ecosystem's complexity increased: teams planned bottom-up, then leaders shifted things around after the fact.
→ Switching to declaring 'orange and red priorities' up front relieved a lot of the planning friction and introduced an honesty Srinivasan credits as a big improvement.
Common mistakes
Planning bottom-up then reshuffling from the top
When teams build a plan and leaders rearrange it afterward, the initial effort is wasted and teams lose trust in the process.
Hiding or softening the real priorities
Without leaders being up front and honest about the true big rocks, teams optimize the wrong work and the most important items slip.
Is it for you?
Best for
Leaders of growing, complex organizations whose planning cycles suffer from bottom-up/top-down churn
Not ideal for
Small teams where priorities are already shared and explicit top-down rocks would feel like micromanagement
From the transcript
“we call it like orange and red priorities”
“teams will plan bottom up. They'll come into a manager or a leader and then the leader may shift things around”
“These are the big rocks we got to get done. We're going to get those things done first”
“there's an honesty that comes with it and that's been a big change”
From the episode
LinkedIn’s product evolution and the art of building complex systems
Hari Srinivasan (LinkedIn)