What is your approach to prioritization?
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Chief Technology Officer in Education2 years ago
Prioritization can be extremely challenging when you are also trying to prioritize the needs of others and manage expectations. It is also challenging to prioritize in an environment where it feels like everything in the moment take priority over other things. That said, if everything is urgent, then nothing is.As a leader in my organization, in addition to prioritizing things, I have to balance whether something needs to be completed by me or by someone on my team. I also have to be ready to set expectations on completion for that person, as well as guide them through prioritization.
For projects and tasks that are mine to lead and complete, I have to consider them in the broader scope. In order to sufficiently set prioritization, I need to define why something is being done, as well as who the audience is and what the end result should be. The answers to these questions dictates the order of prioritization for “the thing.”
I’ve found that sometimes, answering the questions above around prioritization comes as second nature. Other times, the questions are more complex and lead to more questions.
I also find guidance in the Eisenhower priority matrix, which is easily found by Googling that. It provides a graphical representation of the basic system of prioritization.
In the end, prioritization is a skill that must forever be practiced and refined.
Managing Director in Manufacturing2 years ago
First we never stop trying to improve our process to achieve prioritization. We approach this by looking at the value we are creating for the customer or business. We use an adapted version of the scaled agile framework to look at the reach, impact, confidence and effort (RICE Score) of each individual item. As a cross functional and department team we create a agreed RICE score, then this same team looks at the results of this exercise. Typically the results are obvious as what should be done when and etc.
We do, analyze, then improve on our way! Hope this helps!
Data Scientist in Consumer Goods2 years ago
My approach to prioritization is based on what can lead to the most success given the requirements. We would have to take a mult-step approach1-re-visit available resources (man power needed to implement..etc)
2-find goals that aligns with the company
3-filter the goals based on expected return (short term vs long term)
CIO in Manufacturing2 years ago
It is about being in tune with business needs. I make sure to revisit the business needs regularly and adjust the priority of resources. With this of course is the need to finish projects you have started.
From the important side, you have to look at what the business's goals are, how your team is supporting those goals, what projects and deliverables you have, and how you’re moving along with your strategic plan and roadmap to execute on those. Compare that with how much of your time is spent on emergencies and day-to-day support or maintenance tasks. You also need to balance the quick wins with longer term deliverables on your roadmap, so look for any low-hanging fruit — what are the easy wins that you could knock out quickly? Even if folks are not using agile specifically, they've at least taken the philosophy to heart and most IT people aren't looking at doing one-, two- or three-year projects. We're all trying to shorten the time frame for delivering business results today that, over time, ultimately fulfill long-term business objectives.
Prioritization is about time management, so you need to evaluate what's easy versus difficult. What can you do quickly? What takes longer? It can also be helpful to look at the rest of the business, because most of your IT roadmap isn't about delivering new IT systems. It's all about implementing new services for finance, manufacturing, operations, sales, etc., so what does the availability of that function look like? What does their team look like? That’s an important consideration because you have to balance priorities against resource availability. Then there’s the whole financial picture: What can you get funding for? How is that impacting cash flow, your budget and the resources on your team? You have to look at it from at least four or five different angles, and you're constantly reevaluating. I keep looking at what's changed in the business, whether that's related to people, funding, or my own internal bandwidth. I’ll reconsider the decision I made a month ago or the path we're on, and figure out if it needs to be changed or altered because of new challenges that have come up in the business.