Prioritising tasks: How not to lose focus

Effective task prioritisation is a key element of successful project management. To bring a project to completion, a manager needs to create a reasonable schedule and consistently execute tasks, avoiding delays and resource conflicts. It is important to evaluate tasks not only by their complexity but also by their impact on the overall success of the project, as some tasks may be time-consuming but less important than simple but critical tasks. Prioritisation helps to achieve project goals on time and on budget.

What is task prioritisation?

Everyone is familiar with the phrase ‘first things first,’ and it's one that explains the prioritisation process very well. Your job is to identify the ‘first’ things to do: the most important tasks, the most urgent activities to be done, etc. and complete them in priority order. All you have to do is decide which task is the most important. This may seem like a simpler task, but you can actually use the techniques below to make this decision with confidence.

Prioritise and manage tasks

Before you start prioritising, it's important to have a good idea of what needs to be done to complete the project. The requirements gathered and the agreed scope should be clearly recorded and available to all team members. The tasks should then be written down in a document or planning tool, categorising them (e.g. project phases) so that they can then be prioritised within these groups.

Team members should understand the project objectives, the commercial expectations of stakeholders and the scope of work to be undertaken. This will help to ensure that the project is transparent from the outset and will also allow experienced staff to make useful suggestions for prioritisation. In addition, the team should be aware of the dependencies between tasks and any constraints, which will help in building an effective work schedule.

When prioritising, it is important to not only distinguish urgent tasks from less important ones, but also to order tasks with the same level of priority. For this, there are several popular strategies that help the project manager to organise the team efficiently and avoid delays. 

The best prioritisation strategies 

Eisenhower Matrix

One of the most popular strategies for choosing the main activities to focus on. You should categorise tasks into four groups according to their importance, namely:

• Urgent and Important;
• Non-urgent and unimportant;
• Urgent and unimportant;
• Non-urgent and unimportant.

With a quick glance at the Eisenhower matrix, you can easily understand which tasks should be prioritised (urgent and important) and which ones should be focused on later (non-urgent and unimportant). The third group of tasks can usually be delegated and the fourth group consists of those that can be removed from the to-do list. In projects it is not always possible to delegate or exclude tasks, but recognising their secondary importance will help to plan for them. This will allow you to allocate your team's time and resources efficiently without losing focus on the main tasks.

MoSCoW method

This method too involves grouping tasks. It is a useful technique for prioritising tasks, and can be even more useful as part of the workload management process. You can ask stakeholders to rank the project requirements into these four groups. You need to use categories related to how important a task is to the project, namely:

• Must Have: Critical tasks without which the project cannot be completed;
• Should Have: Important tasks that are desirable, but their absence will not prevent the project from being completed;
• Could have: Tasks that are useful but not necessary and can be completed if time permits;
• Won't: Tasks that are not planned for completion in the current project but may be considered in the future.

Methods for assessing value and prioritising tasks

Anyone who has worked in project management probably knows about the Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of results stem from 20% of causes, so it is important to identify those 20% of tasks that will add the most value to the project. Your goal is to find out which tasks will have the maximum impact on the successful completion of the project. You can visualise the value of each task and thus separate the key tasks from the secondary tasks. It is also worth understanding what will happen if tasks are not completed and how they should be allocated to avoid problems.

When prioritising tasks, it is important to consider your personal attitude towards them. Sometimes it is tempting to prioritise a task as a lower priority simply because it seems unattractive or difficult. It is important to be objective despite your preferences or the expectations of the team. Be mindful of dependencies and constraints, namely:

• Be aware of dependencies between tasks - some tasks may depend on the completion of others;
• Pay attention to project constraints, such as resource constraints or time constraints;
• Schedule dependent or constrained tasks for the most appropriate time.

Conclusion: Adjusting project priorities

Change is inevitable in project management, and this also applies to priorities, which can shift. Regularly review your prioritised task list and check that they are in line with the current plan. Be sure to inform the team of any changes in priorities so that they are aware of the new conditions. Communication with the team on this point is critical.

Despite being ready for change, it is important not to accept change without first analysing it. The reasons for major changes in the project should be explored. This is important to stay on top of current company goals and avoid scope creep. Changing priorities can be a sign of uncontrolled scope creep and should be carefully monitored.