A Primer on Prioritizing

A Primer on Prioritizing

A quick primer on prioritizing.

This exercise is one I use with my coaching clients dealing with a long of competing priorities. At first blush it looks like a lot of work, but like all decision making tools, it serves its purpose when you walk away feeling invigorated, in control, and ready to make progress. The idea is simple, when you have a long list of items that you need to accomplish, focus on the highest gain activities.

Simple, but not easy.

Let’s dig into how we discern what is a highest gain activity. In my definition, I am concerned with the potential outcome compared to my desired outcome and contrast that against my effort. If I can focus 1/3 of my energy on 3 activities that will get me to 80% of where I want to be, I’m thrilled because it means I have what I desire the most, which is self directed time.

Here’s how it works. The first step is to get out the full list of tasks/events that need to are competing for your attention. With my clients, I find this step to be the most daunting, but it should only takes 30 minutes of uninterrupted thought. Make a big list and put everything that comes to mind on paper, in no particular order. Then score the list of items against each other a single criteria.

We’re going to use OPQRS. It stands for, Opportunity, Pragmatic, Quick, Rewarding, and Success. Let’s define them.

Opportunity is a ranking of the priority in relation to the others on the list. Use a a scale of 1-10. If it’s near the top of the list as far as opportunities go, give it an 8 or 9 – occasionally a 10. And if the opportunity is a little less promising than the others, give it a 2, 3 or 4. You may end up with a majority lumped into the 6 or 7 range. . .but don’t panic. This is why we need the exercise, right?

Pragmatic is a ranking how pragmatic the priority is. It’s one thing to know that a marketing tactic should work and another to know that a marketing tactic will give you a three to one return on the dollar. So rank these priorities with that in mind, on a scale of 1-10 with the more pragmatic items scoring 7, 8, or 9

Quick is evaluating the priority by how quickly the results will come. The faster you’ll see results, the higher the score. This is important because your most precious resource is time. Again, the activities with faster results score higher.

Rewarding is an evaluation of each of the list items as they compare to the how personally rewarding you or your team will find the priority. It’s possible to score a priority low on the Opportunity rank, but with a high Rewarding score because of how your group will feel about the outcome. It’s a big component of FIT.

Success is a valuation of how likely you and your team is to get the results you’re after. Pragmatic takes a look at the the likelihood of the priority itself coming to fruition and similarly the success score is the likelihood that the priority contributes to your firm’s ultimate success in the timeline you’ve set out for yourself.

You work each column/criteria at once. Don’t score a priority across the grid, score the priorities against one another. The end result looks like this (excuse the post formatting):

Priorities	Opportunity	Pragmatic	Quick	Rewarding	Success	Total
Book proposal	8	5	6	10	8	37
Testimonials	7	8	8	10	10	43
Product launch	4	10	10	7	7	38
Booklet production	3	3	10	8	3	27
Website upgrade	4	10	6	5	6	31

You end up with a list. . . in this case five competing priorities scores from 5 to 50. You’ll see a pattern emerge. In a list of 30 or 40 competing priorities, 3 or 4 priorities will emerge as your highest gain activities. Your bottom 20 are what you would consider busy work. Activities that suggest motion, but are keeping you from your desired outcomes.

The list isn’t meant to be infallible, but like a cost accounting exercise, use it as a decision tool to knock out activities that won’t move the needle. I’m all about FIT, focusing on business practices that your company can live with, and this exercise helps with that. By listing priorities, scoring them against one anther, and considering the pragmatism of each one,  you’re taking a lot at how realistic it will be for you to do it and what you’ll really get from it.

It works.

If you are in charge of a P&L with budget responsibility where you can prioritize spend, do the same exercise with competing spending activities. ..and add a Priority Score column with the prioritizing exercise scores in the last column. Spend money based on your team’s highest gan activities. It looks like this (again, excuse the post formatting):

Priorities	Opportunity	Pragmatic	Quick	Rewarding	Success	Priority score	Total
Online class purchase	5	6	6	6	4	9	36
New Photos	5	7	5	6	4	6	33
Video equipment	2	4	4	4	4	6	24
CRM tool	3	4	5	3	4	3	22
New Laptop	2	4	3	4	4	3	20

These spreadsheets are pretty simple, but have them in a template that is available to my clients. Send me a note if you want a copy. It will be included in the appendix of my upcoming book, The Human Being’s Guide to Business Growth.

Let’s recap: Start with a big list of every competing priority, activity, and investment consideration. Separate investment items from activities, score the activities, then score the investment, rank the results and then set it aside.

Let your subconscious go to work on the items that rose to the top and the priorities that went to the bottom.

Side note: If you’re thinking of using this tool with your people, remember that FIT requires them to prioritize themselves. You need to help them define the desired outcomes and the possibilities, but beyond that, they need to focus on the things they can live with and commit to getting those activities done. The right fit, leads to consistent activity, which leads to momentum building, and rolling over obstacles. Consistent human activity is much more powerful than a employing a robot doing what you think they should do. In big companies, they have the dollars and people to demand specifics, but in small companies, you need to get the most from the resources you have on hand.

Use this tool and let me know if it helps. It should lead to some great discussions. Remember, communication is the root of growth

Good stuff.