Main idea

Work time taken outside the prioritization framework does not escape the arbitrations by accident: it escapes them because it only handles topics whose value is already settled. That is what distinguishes it from a workaround.

Value is settled when it is attested by what already comes up: the pain recurs often, support sees it go by, customers put it into words, the team knows the product well enough to know it is real. Nothing entering there needs to be investigated, justified or compared — which is precisely why it can be handled without going through the roadmap.

Big uncertain projects and strategic bets are therefore excluded by construction. They are excluded not because they are large, but because they demand the arbitration this time does not perform.

Why it matters

It supplies the criterion most out-of-framework devices lack, and which decides whether they hold or drift. Without it, the question "why that one?" comes back, and with it the whole arbitration apparatus you were trying to avoid.

It also inverts an intuition: what makes a topic eligible is not its size, it is the absence of uncertainty about its value. A small topic whose value is debatable has no business there.

Nuances and limits

"The value is already known" is a judgment, and it can be wrong: a pain repeated by support may concern three atypical customers.

And the criterion structurally favors whatever complains loudest. The irritants of silent users never come up, and this device will never see them.

Open questions

• How do you check that a pain raised by support concerns more than just the loudest customers?