LNO Prioritize

Most PMs waste time on overhead disguised as strategy.

This skill categorizes your backlog by actual impact:

• Leverage (L): 10x impact - the work that actually matters
• Neutral (N): Regular work - do it well enough, move on
• Overhead (O): Busywork - minimize or automate

Then tells you if your time allocation is broken.

Works with:

• Linear MCP - Auto-analyzes and labels your issues
• GitHub MCP - Auto-analyzes and labels your issues
• Manual - Paste your issue list

Entry Point

When this skill is invoked, start with:

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 LNO PRIORITIZATION
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Are you spending 60%+ time on Leverage work?
Most PMs aren't.

What do you want to analyze?

  1. Current sprint/cycle
     → I'll fetch and categorize all active issues

  2. Specific team or project
     → Focus on a subset of your backlog

  3. Paste issue list
     → I'll categorize what you provide

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What This Does

Categorizes every issue, then challenges your priorities:

• Are you spending 60%+ time on Leverage work? (You should be)
• Is "strategy work" actually Overhead disguised as important?
• Which Neutral tasks can you delegate or do at B- quality?
• Which Overhead tasks can you eliminate entirely?

Usage

/lno-prioritize

Optional parameters:

• /lno-prioritize --team [team-name] - Categorize specific team's issues
• /lno-prioritize --project [project-name] - Categorize specific project
• /lno-prioritize --label - Auto-add Linear labels (leverage/neutral/overhead)
• /lno-prioritize --current-sprint - Only analyze current sprint issues

What Happens

1. Fetches issues from Linear or GitHub (if MCPs configured)
2. Applies LNO framework
3. Categorizes each issue based on:
   • Strategic importance
   • Impact potential
   • Time investment required
   • Compounding value
4. Returns analysis with:
   • Issue title and ID
   • LNO category assignment
   • Reasoning for categorization
   • Recommended time allocation
5. Optionally updates source with labels (if --label flag used and using Linear)

Example Output

📊 LNO Prioritization Results

🚀 LEVERAGE (10x impact - be a perfectionist):
- [ENG-245] Rebuild recommendation engine
  Reason: Core product differentiator, compounds over time

- [ENG-198] Product strategy for Q2
  Reason: Foundational decision affecting all downstream work

📈 NEUTRAL (Regular impact - do good enough work):
- [ENG-301] Update onboarding flow copy
  Reason: Important but not transformational

- [ENG-276] Add analytics to checkout page
  Reason: Useful data but incremental improvement

⚙️ OVERHEAD (Minimal impact - do quickly):
- [ENG-312] Reformat PRD template
  Reason: Administrative work, no strategic value

- [ENG-288] Update Linear labels
  Reason: Organizational cleanup

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📊 YOUR TIME ALLOCATION IS BROKEN
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Current backlog:
- 2 Leverage tasks (20%)
- 4 Neutral tasks (40%)
- 4 Overhead tasks (40%)

TARGET allocation:
- 60% Leverage (you're at 20% - way too low)
- 30% Neutral
- 10% Overhead (you're at 40% - way too high)

WHAT TO DO:
1. **Kill or delegate 3 of 4 Overhead tasks**
   - Reformatting templates? Not your job.
   - Linear labels? Automate it.

2. **Stop perfectionism on Neutral work**
   - Onboarding copy doesn't need to be perfect
   - Ship at B- quality and move on

3. **Focus on Leverage:**
   - Recommendation engine = your #1 priority
   - Q2 strategy = your #2 priority
   - Everything else can wait

Want me to create Linear issues to delegate/automate the Overhead work?

Integration Options

With Linear MCP: Automatically fetches Linear issues and can add L/N/O labels.

With GitHub MCP: Automatically fetches GitHub issues and can add labels.

Manual mode: Paste your issues and the skill will categorize them:

Apply the LNO framework to these issues: [paste issue list]

Learn More

See the full LNO Prioritization framework at: frameworks/planning/lno-prioritization.md

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Framework: Aakash Gupta (based on Shreyas Doshi) Best for: Sprint planning, backlog grooming, time management AI-era adaptation: Focus on leverage work (vision, strategy) while AI handles neutral/overhead tasks