37% of product teams say prioritisation is their hardest problem

Thirty-seven percent of product professionals name feature prioritisation as one of their biggest challenges right now — and 39% say balancing competing projects, priorities and team capacity is just as hard. The numbers come from Atlassian's State of Product 2026 report, which surveyed more than 1,000 product professionals, and they point to a blunt conclusion: the pain isn't a lack of tools or knowledge. It's decision-making under pressure.

Picture the scene. Five ideas on the table, resources for two. The user research is useful but not conclusive, and two stakeholders disagree about what ships next. That grey zone — user needs on one side, revenue targets on the other, imperfect data everywhere — is where most product teams now live.

Nielsen Norman Group's research backs this up from the design side. Designers consistently struggle to influence product roadmaps, to get teams to act on research findings, and to connect user needs with business outcomes. The fix, the analysis suggests, is translation: turning "users find this frustrating" into what that frustration costs in conversions, retention, or support hours. The better teams get at that arithmetic, the easier the roadmap argument becomes.

Why is saying 'no' so hard?

Coming up with ideas has never been the problem. Most teams drown in them. The hard part is rejecting a request that looks worthwhile, because every "yes" carries an opportunity cost.

Strong discovery practice is the counterweight. Dig into the underlying user need, test the riskiest assumption first, gather evidence early. That's how a team earns the confidence to tell a stakeholder "not now" — and mean it.

Time pressure makes it harder. Almost half of the professionals in Atlassian's survey said they lack enough time for strategic planning and data analysis. You rarely get weeks of discovery or a large research sample before a deadline. The skill, the report implies, is choosing the right method for the time you actually have: a leaner research technique, a narrower scope, the riskiest question tested before the comfortable one. Smart compromise, not corner-cutting.

What does AI change?

AI is already pulling weight in the workflow. Of the 1,000+ professionals Atlassian surveyed, 77% said AI saves them time on routine tasks — analysing research, generating ideas, speeding up prototyping.

But there's a gap sitting right next to that gain. In the same study, 34% said adapting to AI is among the biggest challenges they face. The tension is straightforward: AI can accelerate the work, yet teams still need to interrogate its outputs and decide what's actually useful. Outsourcing the routine is fine; outsourcing the judgement is not. The report's implied answer is AI literacy built alongside — not instead of — solid UX and product skills.

Then there's the data problem. Research points one way, analytics another, and the clock runs out before the picture is complete. Waiting for certainty isn't an option. The capability that separates strong teams from stuck ones is knowing how to reduce uncertainty enough to move — identifying what you really need to learn, picking the method that tests it, and recognising when the evidence is sufficient to act. More research isn't always the answer.

What's the common thread?

Strip away the five separate challenges and one skill remains: confident, effective decision-making. In practice that means a team can:

• Connect user needs to business goals, so work creates value on both sides.
• Evaluate ideas before investing, and say "not now" when something doesn't stack up.
• Adapt methods to the time and resources available rather than waiting for a perfect process.
• Use AI critically while keeping human expertise at the heart of important calls.
• Read imperfect evidence and know when to keep digging versus when to act.

There's no formula for it. It comes from the right mix of skills across the team and the judgment to apply them when messy, real-world problems arrive — which is why training has entered the picture. The UX Design Institute pitches team programmes across UX and product design, user research, content design, accessibility and AI, delivered self-paced, live online, in person, or as a custom mix. The pitch is simple: keep that decision-making capability in-house, ready for the next time five ideas compete for two slots.

By James Calloway