How do you eat the elephant? Spoon by spoon. But where to start? Prioritisation is a skill set that every manager needs to focus on for both themselves and their team.
We usually rely on these skills in times of organisational complexity and work peaks, but is a set of competences that enables everybody to regularly assess, manage, and monitor their workload.
How to prioritise?
Use a method
In the life of a manager is critical that you have the methodological tools and experience that allow this “sorting” activity. Choose one that fits you and use it, because even making errors will create further experience.
Be accountable
Feel empowered to make decisions and take responsibility for managing the workload both for yourself and your organisation. You are a manager so your job is to take decisions.
First things first
Understand what is most important from different perspectives, people and as well as different time horizons (short medium and long term). Knowing how to prioritise work affects how you get results, your team’s commitment, and your role as a leader. Everything that happens in the company, especially if characterised by large dimensions and complexity, requires a clear allocation of priorities. Easier said that done. One of the greatest challenges for managers is precisely setting priorities in daily work with precision. And if this process is not carried out in a more than perfect way, the risk is that each new task or project becomes nothing more than a further “top priority”. But it is clear that this cannot be the case and that it takes a lot of practice to do it well.
Be effective in acting
Gather a list of all activities: Put together everything you want your team to do in one day. Don’t worry about the order or number of tasks in advance.
Identify what is urgent and what is important. Are there any tasks that require immediate attention? We are talking about jobs which, if not completed by the end of the day or in the next few hours, will have serious negative consequences (missed deadline for the client, ..). Check if there are any high priority dependencies which require the completion of some of your tasks to be terminated or started.
Weight the activities. Focus on just the “important” component and identify what brings the most value to your business and organisation.
Evaluate the effort. If there are tasks that have chained priorities, check their timing and start putting whatever you think will take the most effort to complete first.
Be flexible. Uncertainty and change are facts of everyday life. Be aware that priorities will change and often when you least expect it. You may won’t be able to do everything in the list. After you’ve prioritised your tasks and considered your estimates, reschedule the remaining ones
