Top Prioritization Templates, To Get Your Focus Just Right!
What do you do when you have heaps of work on the plate, and you have to manage every bit of it efficiently, without jading. Well, you know it, right! You will ‘prioritize.’
In the words of Mr. John Maeda – ‘People who can focus get things done, people who can prioritize get the right things done.’
Companies can manage time effectively with their customized software tools.
However, it is often simpler to use an already existing template that will guide you through each process without skipping out on details required to refine your estimations before presenting them to anyone else.
One such effective template would be a prioritization template.
We have crunched our study in the blog and picked out our top prioritization templates.
What Is Prioritization?
Prioritization involves deciding what is the correct, appropriate or necessary action in a specific situation based on a set of criteria.
You can do it by assigning values to actions, activities, or objects so that you can order them according to their relevance, importance, urgency, and/or sequence in achieving an objective.
Prioritization is one of the most important management techniques that help achieve desired results by directing energy and resources into the most critical activities.
The art of prioritizing, also known as time or task management, requires much attention to detail to not be taken for granted.
It demands a systematic approach towards describing your tasks, prioritizing them based on their importance, and choosing the best possible way to complete them within the given timeframe.
Some Advantages Of Prioritization
- Prioritization plays a vital role in the success of any organization. It is more important than ever for businesses to allocate their resources effectively and efficiently in today’s ever-changing business environment.
- It determines what is most important and then does that one thing first. This ranking also helps us do the other things that are less important later or not at all.
- Prioritization is a standard part of product management because it helps guide you on what to do first and what can wait. Sometimes, there is not enough time to finish everything, so you must prioritize your work based on their importance.
- The ability to prioritize tasks effectively often determines whether you will meet goals efficiently and effectively.
- The result is that it saves time and money for both individuals and increases productivity. It will make a potentially overwhelming workload feel more manageable and less stressful.
Now that you know about prioritization let’s see what the prioritization template means:
What Is Prioritization Template
You can use a prioritization template to plan projects or for smaller tasks that you need to distribute among various employees within the company.
The template will help you prioritize your list of tasks according to their value, estimate how much time is necessary to complete them, and choose the best possible way to execute each one, allocating resources where needed the most.
A prioritization template usually starts by listing individual components in a task or project-based order. It becomes easier for you to review all items included in the list before beginning with the actual prioritizing process.
It allows you to review and revise everything mentioned on the list, making sure priority projects are clearly defined and then building a timeline for those projects accordingly.
A prioritization template is a tool that helps you prioritize given ideas, concepts, projects, products, etc.
It has its basis in specific fundamental criteria that each idea/concept/project/product has to meet before being considered for further processing.
Most of These Templates Follow 3 Basic Steps:
- Sorting by priority (highest priority first)
- Assessing the impact (how much will this benefit)
- Listing pros and cons (strengths and weaknesses).
Feature Prioritization Template
When creating a prioritization matrix, it is good to use a template to cover the different factors.
A simple Excel spreadsheet can be modified and used for this purpose, where each column contains one of the considerations you must make in the decision-making process.
One of the prioritization templates is a feature prioritization matrix or voting sheet. This template has its basis on the Kano Model, which Noriaki Kano developed in 1984 to determine customer satisfaction.
Kano Model:
This model is used to determine which product features are the most desirable.
Performance-oriented features benefit the user rather than focusing on hedonics or usability.
These include how fast a task gets completed, how much data transfer rate there is, and similar aspects of functionality that can be measured by technical specifications or benchmarking tools.
Many performance-oriented features are “quality” factors.
Performance ratings appear in percentage values, i.e., 100% represents optimum performance for that feature while 50% represents an average performance level (which still satisfies requirements).
RICE Model:
R – Response time: The length of time a user needs to wait for a task to complete performance.
I – Input/Interaction Effort: Extra mental or physical effort is needed to use the product.
C – Cognitive Load: The total mental effort needed to operate the solution.
E – Error Rate: How many errors one expects from using the product.
MosCow Model:
MosCow model is an acronym for Mental Overload, Speed Overload, Click Fade, and Complexity.
Mental overload: The number of decisions that one has to make under increasing cognitive load;
Speed overload: The perception that something is taking too long;
Click fade: How quickly users lose their liking for a website or software after interacting with it only once (the more repetitions of an experience, the better);
Complexity: How complicated it is to understand what’s on the screen and how to use it. The MosCow model was developed by William Buxton et al. at the University of Washington Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HITLab) in 2001-2002.
And also called the “Mode Effect.”
Risk vs. Reward Prioritization Template
It is a prioritization method that involves ranking the risks and potential rewards for a set of items based on their impact. This template provides an easy way to prioritize and compare risks and associated rewards in its simplest form.
The template poses the risk identification question using the following structure: “What are you most afraid of?” or “If everything goes wrong, what will happen?”.
This process effectively develops the complete list of risks you must consider when prioritizing because it encourages brainstorming. Prioritization calculations do not account for risk items.
It is essential to define these terms as they are used in the prioritization process: priority rank (priority number), risk, consequence of a risky event, and severity.
It is also crucial to note the difference between risk and uncertainty. A risky event is one where there is a known probability of occurrence, such as a 30% chance of failure due to electricity supply shortages.
An uncertain event does not have a specific probability of occurring, such as whether or not an earthquake will happen in the next ten years.
Risk prioritization is suited for uncertain events because it uses Monte Carlo simulations to estimate all possible consequences and calculates the probability of each consequence occurring given its severity and likelihood (probability).
Risks are ranked from 1 (highest) to N (lowest), and rewards are assigned the same number of points as risks. One has to prioritize and allocate points between them.
This allocation has it’s basis in their priorities and those of the team. This process continues until the individual with authority has allocated an equal number of points or until no further allocation is possible.
Points can be additional/incremental, e.g., those earned through previous project success, or they can be absolute, e.g., those earned by securing funding for the next cycle.
There are several methods of prioritizing risk and reward.
Examples are the Delphi method, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), data-driven prioritization, and the double reference point approach.
Work Strategy Prioritization Template
You can use the Work Strategy Prioritization Template when no clear departmental structure exists when organizations are in the initial steps of their development or encourage self-managing teams by delegating authority and responsibility.
The strategy will help an organization focus on its strengths while building on existing opportunities. The Work Strategy Prioritization Template is for use with individuals who represent different functions within the organization.
It outlines steps of prioritizing work strategies to be performed by each individual’s respective area while at the same time defining their contribution to higher-level team goals.
Using a standard prioritization template is important for this process, like work strategy prioritization template.
Mckinsey Prioritization Template
This template is used by Mckinsey & Company when trying to prioritize projects.
Mckinsey’s approach is quite different from the number-based prioritization that many people use, which can lead to Mckinsey’s approach being much more effective at identifying the most crucial work for any particular business in a specific point in time.
By far, Mckinsey’s approach is not perfect, and if you have read this article, you will see there are some flaws with Mckinsey’s method.
However, Mckinsey’s strategy has one great strength: it leads to a dialogue between all those involved in the project teams.
Everyone gets together to discuss these priorities, whereas using a number-based system leads people to complain about why they got a specific number and ask what it means when they don’t have a clue!
Mckinsey’s approach is straightforward to use, so why not try it for yourself before you decide on Mckinsey’s approach or something similar.
The McKinsey 7-S prioritization survey consists of:
1) Objective: What do you wish to attain?
2) Analysis: What are your opportunities and constraints?
3) Stratification: How should you group your opportunities and constraints?
4) Scenarios: What are the best opportunities within each stratum?
5) Weighting: How should you prioritize between high-impact scenarios?
6) Simulation: What is the probability of achieving your priority list scenario(s)?
7) Sensitivity analysis: How would this priority list change if important variables change?
Prioritization aims to identify a small number of “high-impact scenarios” that have a greater chance of being achieved.
3×3 Prioritization Template:
Three members of staff created this template for three stories in priority, to assign to each story, 3 hours per member.
- 3 hour time period
- 3 days between assignments
- 3 weeks before the due date – 3 questions your story must answer by this deadline
The 3×3 Prioritization Template is a specific template that you can use for any number of stories or team members.
The critical factor is the division into three equal parts within which you should divide the work. Everything else you can set yourself.
Conclusion
Without prioritization, the management can fall at sixes and sevens. Therefore, it’s essential to prioritize and wait! That’s not all, it is also imperative to prioritize well.
Prioritization empowers you and enables you to fetch better yields in your business. These templates will help you immensely in the prioritization journey, so go on and use them!