Managing Priorities: Looking for a Leaner & More Efficient Way?

Busy leaders are looking for a leaner and more efficient way of managing priorities across their business units and teams. That is clear from our research into the challenges they face in managing (or to be more precise, juggling) a growing number of priorities (incl. key projects and initiatives). What they don’t want, however, is yet another internal meeting or report!

Looking for a Better Way

Given the number and importance of priorities (their urgency too) leaders want a speedier and more efficient way to:

• Keep the focus on key priorities. Caught up in the busyness of the day to day, it is easy to get distracted.
• Prevent siloed working and solo-runs and ensure everybody is pulling in the same direction.
• Prevent stand-alone decisions regarding individual priorities or projects, highlighting linkages, synergies and dependencies where they exist.
• Provide those responsible with the support they need, without micro-managing or adding to the levels of reporting or bureaucracy.

The Requirements:

As we listened to leaders talk of their desire for a better way to manage priorities, the following requirements emerged:

• The time commitment must be minimal, with little, if any, preparation required. People are very busy and already spend too much time in internal meetings.
• Most important of all, the process must be helpful — adding value for all those involved.
• It should be action oriented — feeling like a workout rather than another meeting or workshop.
• The process must be repeatable internally (with little, if any, external support). It can’t require any special software or new methodology.

The Solution

Given these requirements, we set ourselves the challenge of creating a powerful workout for a leadership team’s top priorities — one that is completed in 60-90 minutes and can be repeated as needed (typically every 6 or 8 weeks). As the people who took pit-stopping into the business world, we relished this apparently impossible challenge. It was also an opportunity to address what our research continually points to as a blind spot for many organizations.

Here is the solution we created: A complete workout for your team’s top priorities in just 60 minutes. It gives priorities a practical boost, as well those who are running them. Moreover, like going to the gym, it makes people feel good.

Here is what it looks like: 60-90 minutes, 6–8 people, 6 priorities and 6 exercises or tests.

6 exercises/tests

The Priorities Workout is a series of 6 exercises or tests conducted at speed, answering the following questions:

1. Is there full agreement on the top 5–6 priorities?
2. Do people know enough about / understand all the top priorities?
3. How are the key priorities stacked in terms of importance?
4. What is the level of confidence for each of the top priorities? 
5. What is the nature and level of the ambition driving the top priorities?
6. What is the amount of time being spent on the top priorities?  Is it enough?

The answers to these questions are generated live and in graph format based on the input of your team (via their PC or other device). This provides immediate clarity, with people being able to dialog the implications right away.

Outputs

At the end of the workout, the following emerge:

1. Agreement as to any priorities that need further discussion or analysis
2. A decision about when the team will next review its priorities (repeat the process)
3. New insight to the team, it’s strategy and execution.

Measurable Benefits

The result is clarity and alignment across your team re its Top 5–6 priorities. A boost to execution, as well as new energy and engagement across a team.

The impact is surprising.  Combined with other measures (e.g., follow-up by the leader) the following results are possible:

• Focus and alignment by up to 21% in 3 months (2 workouts)
• The way we work up 15-20%
• The way we interact up 12-20%
• Perceived rate of progress and momentum up 15-25%

Like anything else, sustaining these benefits requires repeating the priority workout process as needed (typically every 6-10 weeks). Given the speed involved, that is not a challenge.

What Leaders Say

Here is how leaders talk about the priorities workout:

‘We have a clear set of priorities as a team – I might not have said that in advance of the session, but I can now’.

‘With so much going on, it is easy to get distracted and to be pulled in different directions. The workout was a great way of focusing attention on key priorities’.

‘I found it energizing. There was a sense that we are making good progress against many of the priorities’.

‘What emerged as the top priority for our team was a surprise. It did not exist 3 weeks ago! That just goes to show how priorities change all the time and require regular review’.

‘I feel like I better understand what is going on for everybody else on the team… that there is a greater sense of shared ownership’.

‘This will help us to manage internal stakeholders and their expectations, especially when they come to us with new projects and priorities’.

‘I am responsible for one of the key priorities and had been left to get on with it.  After today’s session, I feel more supported by the team and less like I am battling with it alone’.

‘I guess there will always be more priorities and projects than available resources. This was a reminder that we really need to stay focused on what matters most’.