What is your approach to prioritization?
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There are lots of ways to do prioritisation. They are all biased which is somewhat unavoidable. WSJF is one approach that at least allows you to be a bit explicit in the biases you are aware of.
In today's age is really a bit difficult task to prioritize all work. Urgent vs important is really difficult to identify and act accordingly.
Prioritization is determining the level of importance and urgency of a task, thing or event. It’s a key skill for any working professional and is absolutely essential for project managers to master. Intelligent prioritization is a vital part of Planning to align people, priorities and projects.
One of the biggest challenges for project managers and team leaders is accurately prioritizing the work that matters on a daily basis. Even if you have the best project management software, you’re the one who enters information into the tool. And, you don’t want to fall into the role of crying “top priority” for every other project that comes down the pike.
Just as you have to be diligent and have the right kind of project insight to ensure that nobody’s working on yesterday’s priorities, it takes a lot of practice and time management to get this right.
When there are a lot of moving parts in projects need a detailed analysis of job and resources planning to make a prioritization plan.
1. Take the quick wins if able.
2. Figure out the bigger picture items and see what the plan of action is.
3. Align next steps with strategic plans.
As to prioritization, there are lots of great things that have been said on the topic, but it all comes down to our own personal style and ho we cope with problems. My two favorite rules are if a task is both urgent and important then get it done. Next is the "eat the frog" mentality that if it's something you hate doing then do it first. Everything gets easier from there.
To a fair extent, business drives the priority. We should look into the items with huge impact but less effort if that is possible. The approach can be faster, better, and cheaper. There are always exceptions. Yet times non-functional items take priority as they become foundational to scale and operate post-go-live. Always index on doing things right while doing the right things. This might seem to slow down, but actually, it will not.