Importance of Setting Project Goal before starting?
If you can prioritize every task and set project goals precisely before setting out with something new, then surely you’ll succeed at your work. It will not only build leadership skills but also help your team to engage with each other more. You have to make sure the projects that deal with many people have a distinctive priority, so they need to be sorted before starting a project. There will always be changes in workflow and changes in prioritization during the project, but it’s important to adapt to the changes as and when it comes.
One needs to stay calm and work diligently to have the proper insight to make sure everything is ready before starting a project. Ignoring prioritization results in missed project goals and thus in turn failure in achieving business goals.
If you look at various industries, prioritizing the workflow of the project is always a tough job to do. If you are not competent enough to manage all the priorities well, you’ll bring down the whole team and group morale.
So what do we mean by ‘priority’?
In simple terms, a task that is considered superior to other tasks due to its importance is called a priority. When it comes to a set of tasks, they are executed based on it’s a priority. For example, submitting your assignment on time is a priority over playing Counter-Strike with your friends. The manager of a project should thoroughly analyze the project and then prioritize various tasks before beginning a project.
Now let’s look at a few important points that will help you prioritize tasks before starting projects and meet your deadline in stipulated time:-
Steps to easily set project goals:
1) Listing of all the tasks
Bring together everything that you will require to do before beginning your project. Don’t neglect minor details, take your time, and jot down all the required tasks and functionalities you need to provide in order to complete the project. Don’t be taken aback after finding a gamut of tasks, it can be intimidating initially.
2) Sort out between most urgent tasks
After collecting the list of tasks, it’s time for the next step. Now you’ve to sort out between the tasks that seek an immediate response. The tasks which need immediate review are the ones that need to be completed within a week, and if you fail to do so, it will majorly affect the product development. These tasks need to be prioritized over the important ones because good prioritization will help you align your resources more strategically.
3) Weigh the value of each task
After sorting out the urgent tasks, now you have to weigh the value between the ones that are left. Stakeholder’s view is really important to take into consideration. Each person will have a different point of view and you shouldn’t move ahead until you all build some agreement around the weighting criteria. While weighing, task dependencies should be kept in mind.
4. Put the tasks in order with the total effort required to put in
So you have already weighed the tasks, that sounds good. Now suppose there is a situation when the priorities of the two tasks are the same, then what should you do?.
If that situation arrives, then you need to have a look at their estimates so that you can start with the one that needs the most time to complete. The strategy of starting a task that needs more time to complete first is a good practice.
5) Adapt to changes
As you already know, nothing is certain, it’s very important to always be ready for unexpected changes. These changes will also impact your priorities as they will change too. If suddenly some functionality is requested and without it your team won’t be able to move ahead, your schedule and planning should be flexible enough to bear that.
6) Cut out on a few tasks
So after all, it’s not possible to complete all the tasks you’ve listed down, and it’s natural, you don’t need to worry. So you have already prioritized all the tasks and figured out the estimates of the time it needs to complete. Now cut out on the tasks that are not yet completed and move towards the ones that are of higher priority.
You need to comprehend that choosing the tasks that you do and ones you don’t are both equally important. Time is of the essence, so there will be situations when you won’t be able to complete all the tasks, and that’s fine. You just need to keep your composure and allocate these tasks another time.
Why do you need task prioritization?
Just like time management is essential for everyone’s life, it’s very important to prioritize tasks to understand what task holds the most importance in your list. It is understood at times a long list of tasks can look a bit intimidating at first glance, but don’t get taken aback by it and panic.
This is something that will take some time to develop, but with enough practice, you will be able to prioritize tasks more efficiently.
Most project managers have to deal with long lists regularly, therefore the process of prioritizing tasks helps them to figure the amount of time needed to complete one and hence keep the workflow constant.
