# Example 19 — Bad priority request corrected into a defendable stack

## Why this example exists

A lot of prioritization requests are malformed.
They ask for ranking without saying what the period is supposed to accomplish.

## Bad input

> “Please prioritize these 9 requests for next quarter. Leadership wants progress everywhere, and all stakeholders think their item is urgent.”

## Why this input is bad

- no period objective
- no real capacity boundary
- no distinction between must-do and nice-to-have
- “urgent” is being used as noise, not signal

## What `pm-workbench` should do

- force clarity on the period objective first
- surface the real capacity limit
- identify hard commitments or dependency chains
- refuse decorative ranking and produce an above-the-line / below-the-line call instead

## Better reframed question

> “Given our actual quarter objective and capacity, which requests belong above the line, which stay visible but delayed, and which should be explicitly not-now?”

## Better output shape

- period objective
- capacity boundary
- top priorities
- below-the-line set
- main trade-off being made
- stakeholder communication note

## Why this is valuable

It turns a vague ‘please rank everything’ request into a real resource decision the team can defend.
