PM Career | Setting Priorities

Project managers need to master setting priorities because constant trade-offs have to be made during project management. Prioritizing project tasks start with setting a realistic goal first, understanding the relationship between assignments, and then choosing what to do, not do, and how much a task needs to be done. 

Set realistic goals. We can't prioritize our tasks if our goal is not clear or unrealistic. Therefore, the first step is to spend time fully understanding the project and organization objectives and making the plan accordingly. ​

Understand the relationship between assignments. If there is a dependency between tasks, they can't be prioritized but executed in order. An example task flow is shown in the arrow diagram as follows. We can prioritize at points A and B. At Point A, we decide if we do B or C first. At Point B, we determine if we do E or F first. The decision needs to be made based on overall the effort and the overall workflow. ​

What to do is about taking the crucial tasks first. This means you will not merely do fire-fighting jobs but put energy on strategic ones that require attention and tremendous efforts to do them right. 

​What not to do is about staying focused. We recommend no more than three priorities at the same time. You will not do it if the high-priority tasks require all the attention. You will not do this if your team is not ready to take the challenge from emotional and skill readiness. 

How much effort on a task is about avoiding perfectionism—getting things done well enough. You have to balance quality, time, and cost anyway. 

Prioritization is more an art than a science, where we want to keep a balance among objectives, resources, and time.