Well, yeah, sure. But that's not what I meant. The "Optimize for finishing work before starting new work" could be such a heuristic. Contrast two positives with

Well, yeah, sure. But that's not what I meant. The "Optimize for finishing work before starting new work" could be such a heuristic. Contrast two positives with an "even over" statement. If you have heuristics such as "maintainable software even over new features" (this is just an example, this could just as well be the opposite) that apply to the entire team, manager included, people don't need their manager to tell them whether to work on X or Y each time and they can prioritize their own work.