Prioritizing the small things

Prioritization has a structural problem. If every piece of work competes in the same backlog, large, high-impact projects will always beat small improvements. That's usually the right outcome for each decision, but the wrong outcome for the product over time.

Minor bugs, inconsistent spacing, awkward copy, and other small flaws rarely become important enough to win on their own. So they linger.

The boy scout rule only gets you so far. You can't rely on someone happening to touch the right part of the product while doing more important work. These improvements need deliberate space.

Either someone fixes them because they care and have the freedom to do so, or the team prioritizes a category of work rather than each item within it.

Bug bashes are a good example. You don't wait until each bug is large enough to compete with customer-facing work. You periodically reserve a block of time for bugs, then fix as many as you can.

Some work matters collectively even when no individual item looks important. If you want the small things done, prioritize the category.