Deprioritize

To reduce the importance of something or someone, placing it lower in a scale of priorities or tasks. This action involves shifting resources, attention, or effort away from the subject in favor of other, perceivedly more crucial aspects. The act of deprioritizing doesn't necessarily eliminate something entirely, but rather diminishes its significance in the context of competing demands and limited resources. It's a strategic decision often made to optimize efficiency, manage constraints, or address urgent needs. The outcome is to either postpone tasks, reduce the budget, or remove a whole activity until it is needed. This might apply to projects, goals, tasks, clients, or any other element that needs to be ranked in order of importance.

Deprioritize meaning with examples

• Faced with a looming deadline for a critical software update, the project manager had to deprioritize the team's work on the new user interface. This meant temporarily shelving the interface enhancements to ensure the update was completed on time and that the current users would have access to the patch. The UI team was advised of the change and were re-assigned to help with the other requirements.
• Due to a significant budget cut, the marketing department had to deprioritize several planned advertising campaigns. They made the tough decision to postpone the launch of a print ad campaign, allocating the available funds to online advertising, which offered a potentially higher return on investment. This helped to minimize the financial loss during a fiscal year.
• In response to a sudden influx of emergency cases, the hospital had to deprioritize elective surgeries. This meant rescheduling non-urgent procedures to free up resources, beds, and personnel to care for patients requiring immediate medical attention. This decision was made to allocate the proper medical staff where they were needed most.
• After a comprehensive performance review, the company decided to deprioritize its relationship with a long-term client whose account consistently yielded low profits. This allowed the sales team to reallocate their time and efforts to pursuing more lucrative business opportunities and increase the profits of the team.