Simplifying Decisions: The Drop, Defer, Delegate Method

Prioritization isn’t just a skill — it’s a survival strategy. As the Senior Director of DevRel at Slack, I’m constantly juggling multiple initiatives, stakeholder requests, and team objectives. It’s a challenging yet exciting role, but without a robust prioritization framework, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.

Enter the “Three D’s”: Drop, Defer, Delegate. This simple yet powerful approach has vastly improved how I manage my time and lead my teams. Let me break it down for you and show you how I’ve applied it to streamline operations and focus on what truly matters.

Understanding the Three D’s

1. Drop

In DevRel, we’re often bursting with ideas and opportunities. However, not every initiative aligns with our strategic goals or delivers meaningful impact. Dropping involves critically assessing our current and proposed projects, and having the courage to let go of those that don’t serve our core objectives.

2. Defer

Some ideas are brilliant but not right for the present moment. Deferring means recognizing the potential in a project or task but consciously deciding to revisit it at a more appropriate time. This isn’t about procrastination; it’s about strategic timing.

3. Delegate

As leaders, we must empower our teams. Delegating involves identifying tasks that provide growth opportunities for team members while allowing me to focus on high-level strategy and direction-setting (also delegating these tasks where appropriate!).

The Three D’s in Action: Our Quarterly Planning

Recently, I put the Three D’s into practice during our quarterly planning. We’re facing a pivotal moment for our company: the launch of our new AI app containers, and we needed to ensure all hands were on deck for this GTM motion.

Here’s how I applied the framework:

Drop

We made the difficult decision to drop support for multiple projects we originally agreed to earlier in Q3. This puts a strain on some of our relationships, but we don’t have the bandwidth to prioritize supporting these projects this quarter.

Some of these may actually become defers for longer running projects that we may be able to support in the future.

Defer

One of our long-term goals has been to create comprehensive Trailhead content for Slack developers. While this remains a valuable objective, we realized it wasn’t critical for the immediate future. We deferred this initiative, placing it on our backlog for reassessment in the next quarter.

Delegate

To create more space for our team to focus on critical enablement material for agents, we identified several operational tasks that could be handled effectively by our Developer Marketing colleagues and some content needs that can be gap-filled by product and engineering team members.

The Results

By applying the Three D’s, we transformed our quarterly plan from a scattered collection of initiatives to a focused, high-impact strategy. Our team is now fully aligned on the agents GTM motion, and early feedback suggests we’re on track for a successful launch.

Moreover, this exercise has had some unexpected benefits:

1. Improved team morale: By clearly communicating our priorities, team members feel more focused and less pulled in multiple directions.
2. Better distribution of responsibilities: Our delegation to the Dev Marketing team has opened up new channels of communication and collaboration.
3. Increased agility: With a clearer plate, we’re better positioned to respond to new opportunities or challenges as they arise.

Implementing the Three D’s in Your Day-to-day

While this framework has been transformative in our DevRel quarterly planning context, its principles can be applied across various roles and industries, as well as tasks of all sizes. Here are some tips for getting started:

1. Regular review: Set aside time each week or month to go through your tasks and apply the Three D’s.
2. Be honest: It’s easy to convince yourself that everything is a priority. Be ruthlessly honest about what truly matters.
3. Communicate clearly: When dropping or deferring projects, ensure all stakeholders understand the reasoning.
4. Trust your team: Delegation only works if you truly empower others to take ownership.
5. Stay flexible: The Three D’s aren’t a one-time exercise. Be prepared to reassess as circumstances change.

Conclusion

The ability to prioritize effectively can be the difference between thriving and merely surviving. The Three D’s framework has given me a powerful tool to cut through the noise and focus on what truly drives value for our developers and our business.

I encourage you to give it a try. You might be surprised at how much clarity and focus you can achieve with three simple words: Drop, Defer, Delegate.