How to Prioritize Enablers in WSJF Without Biasing Business Value

Blog Author

Siddharth

Published

27 Jun, 2025

The Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) model drives prioritization in SAFe®, helping organizations maximize the value delivered by their Agile Release Trains. But when enabler work competes for attention with customer-facing features, teams often struggle to balance short-term business outcomes with the long-term health and scalability of the system.

If you’ve found your team undervaluing enablers during WSJF discussions, you’re not alone. This post walks through practical ways to prioritize enablers objectively—so critical architecture, infrastructure, and compliance needs don’t get lost in the shuffle.

What Are Enablers, and Why Do They Matter in SAFe?

Enablers are the silent drivers of business agility. They include architectural spikes, infrastructure upgrades, compliance requirements, and exploration tasks that pave the way for robust delivery of future features. Without timely investment in enablers, technical debt grows, innovation slows, and the organization risks missing out on market opportunities or regulatory requirements.

Learn more about the official role of enablers in the Scaled Agile Framework for deeper context.

The WSJF Formula in SAFe

WSJF prioritizes backlog items by dividing the Cost of Delay (CoD) by the job size (or duration):

WSJF = Cost of Delay / Job Size

Cost of Delay considers:

User-business value
Time criticality
Risk reduction and/or opportunity enablement

Job size is an estimate of the effort to deliver the item.

This simple formula is designed to maximize economic outcomes, but if you aren’t careful, it can skew decisions against enablers—especially when “user-business value” is scored low for work that’s not directly user-facing.

Why Do Enablers Get Shortchanged?

Business features often appear to deliver immediate customer value, while enablers have less obvious, indirect benefits. Teams sometimes assign low business value scores to enablers, causing them to languish at the bottom of the backlog. Over time, this bias creates mounting technical debt and limits future flexibility.

The challenge: How do you ensure enablers get the right priority, without inflating business value or gaming the WSJF system?

Practical Steps to Prioritize Enablers Objectively

1. Clearly Define the Value of Enablers

Before scoring, clarify how each enabler supports current and future business objectives. Will it reduce the cost of future features? Is it necessary for compliance? Does it enable a new market opportunity or unlock future revenue? Document these links to value in your backlog items.

Example: An architectural enabler might not impact users directly today, but it could significantly speed up future development or avoid major rework.

2. Use the “Risk Reduction and/or Opportunity Enablement” Field Accurately

WSJF includes a dedicated category for value that isn’t user-facing: Risk reduction and/or opportunity enablement. This is where enablers usually shine.

For enablers that reduce future delivery risk (e.g., infrastructure upgrades, refactoring), score this field high based on the risk avoided or opportunity enabled.
Justify the score with data or examples of past slowdowns due to lack of investment.

Tip: Encourage teams to reference real-life incidents, outages, or regulatory fines that would have been avoided with proactive enabler investment.

3. Separate Business and Technical Value—But Don’t Inflate

Be honest in business value scoring. Don’t artificially boost “user-business value” for enablers unless they truly deliver direct customer impact. Instead, articulate the value in terms of risk reduction and future opportunities, and score those appropriately.

This clarity creates transparency and avoids the common pitfall of “gaming the system,” while still reflecting the strategic importance of enablers.

4. Quantify Time Criticality for Enablers

Some enablers have a natural deadline—compliance dates, support deprecation, or platform migrations. Assign higher “time criticality” scores when:

Delay increases cost or risk.
External dates (e.g., regulatory compliance) cannot shift.

For example, a security update required by a regulatory agency before a certain date should get a high time criticality score, reflecting the penalty or risk of non-compliance.

5. Align on Scoring Criteria With Business and Technical Stakeholders

Bring together Product Owners, Scrum Masters, architects, and business owners during WSJF exercises. This cross-functional discussion helps avoid bias and ensures everyone understands the true cost and risk of delaying enablers.

Joint scoring also builds understanding among business leaders who may not always see the technical risks at play.

To dive deeper into the collaboration aspect, the Leading SAFe Agilist Certification Training covers facilitation skills and economic prioritization in detail.

6. Make Enabler Work Visible and Trackable

Don’t bury enablers in the technical team’s backlog. Ensure enabler items are visible at the Program or Solution Backlog level. Use clear naming, tags, or colors to distinguish enablers from business features during PI Planning.

This visibility supports transparent prioritization and highlights dependencies, allowing Release Train Engineers to manage risk more proactively. You can learn more about this in SAFe Release Train Engineer Certification Training.

7. Periodically Review and Rebalance the Backlog

Set regular checkpoints (for example, each Program Increment) to review whether the balance between enablers and business features supports both near-term and long-term goals.

If technical debt is climbing, or teams are repeatedly blocked by missing capabilities, adjust WSJF scores accordingly. Use backlog analytics and flow metrics to guide these decisions.

Check out this article on balancing innovation and business value for more external insights.

Example: Scoring an Architectural Enabler Using WSJF

Let’s walk through an example:

Enabler: Database schema refactoring to support future features.

User-business value: 2 (Little immediate end-user impact)
Time criticality: 5 (New features blocked if not done soon)
Risk reduction/opportunity enablement: 8 (Removes risk of future rework, speeds up all subsequent work)
Job size: 3 (Medium effort)

WSJF = (2+5+8)/3 = 5

A key takeaway: The risk reduction score can legitimately outweigh direct business value when an enabler unlocks future flow or mitigates systemic risks.

For more examples and how to collaborate across roles, SAFe Scrum Master Certification and SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Certification Training both offer practical workshops and case studies.

Avoiding the “Feature Factory” Trap

Teams that only chase business features risk becoming a “feature factory”—shipping short-term value while allowing the technical foundation to rot. The best Product Owners and Product Managers know how to explain the “why” behind enablers, using facts and data to support prioritization. This is a core skill explored in SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager POPM Certification.

Closing Tips

Treat enablers as investments in speed, quality, and future value.
Don’t let short-term business pressure crowd out essential technical work.
Use the full spectrum of WSJF fields to score objectively—don’t inflate or deflate any field for expediency.
Make sure your team regularly reflects on backlog composition and adjusts priorities as organizational needs evolve.

By making the value of enablers explicit, involving all stakeholders, and applying WSJF honestly, you’ll protect your organization from the hidden costs of technical debt—while still delivering real business value at speed.

For further reading, the Scaled Agile Framework’s WSJF page is a highly recommended resource.

If you want to lead prioritization efforts or guide teams through advanced WSJF and backlog management, training like Leading SAFe Agilist Certification Training and SAFe Release Train Engineer Certification Training will help you master both the mechanics and facilitation techniques needed for success.

Also see - Scaling Technical Enablers Across Large Solution Trains in SAFe

Also see - Using Enablers to Support Lean Architecture in Complex Portfolios