Secrets Of Task Prioritization

End of year is a great time for re-evaluation, both personal and professional.  It is also a great time to consider which processes worked and which did not. Choosing the projects on which to focus is, for many, one of the processes that always seems broken.  Here’s a checklist based on behavior modification principles that I’ve found to function extremely well. Like all Skinnerian principles, it must be enforced with an iron fist. There can be no exceptions, ever.  Hard to accomplish but amazing when it works. Focus on the action, not the reasons.

1. Emergencies happen but priorities must reflect support requirements.  All parties MUST acknowledge that emergencies will take precedence. Emergency support must be listed as top priority at all times if it is to supersede other tasks.
2. Be willing to make a choice and stick to it.  Period. If you can’t make firm commitments, don’t make any commitments.
3. Set priorities for:

• 2 weeks
• 3 months
• 6 months

1. Re-visit priorities ranking every quarter.  All stakeholders MUST be present. If stakeholder or representative is not present, all their requests will be deemed non-important and de-prioritized.  Either the requests are important or they are not. There is no gray area. Failure to attend prioritization meeting signals that all requests from that stakeholder are low priority.
2. Set no more than top 5 priorities for any team.  If team believes all 5 priorities are to be completed prior to quarterly meeting, team should contact stakeholders for input.  Emergency support, if listed, counts as one of the five priorities.
3. During assessment, any requests more than 6 months old should be deleted.  If tasks are important, customers should open new request with updated details (re-assessment).  Furthermore, re-opened task should either be assigned higher priority or additional resources add.  If neither is true, request is simply not important and should be deleted.