Political constraints are real constraints! It's very possible to end up in a state where declaring an emergency is genuinely better than any of the options to

Political constraints are real constraints! It's very possible to end up in a state where declaring an emergency is genuinely better than any of the options to avoid it. Consider: * A is clearly important and will have to be "code yellowed" if it's not addressed in the next few months. But you've got to drop one of B, C, or D in order to avoid the code yellow. * B is one of your best engineers' passion project. She's not a big fan of C or D, and she might run away to Google if you tell her they're more important. * C is a promise you made to a customer to unblock some big deal. They might not sign if you tell them you changed your mind and would prefer to work on some projects B and D they don't care at all about. * D is a demand from your VP to address some company priority, and he doesn't think the effort-reward ratio from B or C are very high. If you try to drop D he will probably get mad and tell you that you're not allowed to.