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Everyone understands that managing workload is an important part of any job. And yet, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. So some things must take priority over others. It requires what might seem like a harsh approach. Tasks must be tracked, organized and then keenly ranked. Some things must get deferred. Others delegated. Some must be cut out altogether. This requires the use of the word “No” a lot. Failure to do that results in time wasted, opportunities squandered and deadlines missed. But doing it effectively can be difficult, especially for people who provide a service for a living.
For an attorney, every client is important. For a surgeon, every patient requires help. For a CPA, everyone’s taxes must be completed by the filing deadline. An attorney can’t be in two courtrooms at the same time. A surgeon cannot operate on two patients at the same time. Only so many tax returns can be completed within a certain amount of time. So each client must be assigned a level of priority over the others. For people who are delivering a service, a good way to prioritize work is to look at the impact and effort each task requires to do those that maximize effectiveness. The Action Priority Matrix is a good tool to help with that.
The Action Priority Matrix is similar to the Eisenhower Matrix except that instead of judging tasks based on urgency and importance, the focus is on the impact the task is expected to have (major or minimal) and the effort it requires (a lot or little) to get it done. With the Action Priority Matrix, the goal is to achieve the highest and best use of each person’s time and talents to generate the best ROI on time and effort. This task management system can be used for both individuals and organizations.
The Action Priority Matrix works in a similar way to the Eisenhower Matrix in that it is split up into four quadrants. The quadrants focus on Impact and Effort. To use the Action Priority Matrix, tasks must be qualified based on the impact and the effort needed to complete them, and then placed in the four quadrants: Quick Wins, Major Projects, Fill-Ins and Thankless Tasks.
Quadrant 1 – Quick Wins (High Impact, Low Effort): These are the most attractive projects because they deliver a good return for relatively little effort. Individuals and companies should focus on these as much as possible. This is what some might call “low hanging fruit.” Do these first.
Quadrant 2 – Major Projects (High Impact, High Effort): These require a lot of research and effort but generate good returns. Do these next.
Quadrant 3 – Fill-Ins (Low Impact, Low Effort): These tasks are low-impact tasks that you should drop, if possible, or delegate to someone else if at all possible. But if they can’t be delegated or deleted, then at least these don’t require much effort and can be done when there is down time.
Quadrant 4 – Hard Slogs and Thankless Tasks (Low Impact, High Effort): Avoid these tasks at all cost and, instead, invest time and resources into more important tasks. Seek ways to delegate these tasks. If there is a way to automate it, invest in the tool. If there is an affordable way to outsource it, pay to have it done by others.
In every business and every career, there are “thankless tasks.” These are the tasks to identify and either cancel or delegate. Case in point. For mortgage lenders, a thankless task might be the tracking of post-closing documents. Mortgage lenders know that when everyone in the organization is focused on bringing in more clients and closing more deals, business soars. It makes sense then for lenders to concentrate on what they do best. But after a deal is done, lenders are required to retrieve, audit, correct, and ship complete and correct Trailing Documents post-closing — such as the registered Deed and issued Title Policy for every loan – to the investor that purchased the loan. But this time-consuming, tedious task does not generate any additional revenue for the lender. It is just required to sell the loan. For a lender, this is a low-impact, high-effort task. Here is a situation where — instead of recruiting, hiring and managing a team to “chase paper” — a lender would be wise to delegate the task to a vendor that specializes in collecting and delivering Trailing Docs to their investors. By delegating this “Thankless Task,” they ensure that the final step in the lending process is done on time, with no missed deadlines, errors or penalties. And, by passing it to specialists, the lender accelerates the process without sacrificing accuracy. This ensures better time and task management for the lender and thus better productivity and ROI.
Adding the Scrum Prioritization Method
That said, placing tasks in the quadrants doesn’t always provide enough clarity to then prioritize tasks. Multiple tasks might be scored as having the same impact and effort. If everything is equal in effort and impact, then scoring them achieves nothing. To solve that problem, it helps to pair the Action Priority Matrix with the Scrum Prioritization method.
This system of prioritization relies on sequence. So if you have 20 items on your To Do List, each must be assigned a number – from 1 to 20 — based on both priority and sequence. For example, say your highest impact task is to remodel your company’s office space to add 10% more desks to accommodate new hires. That will have a huge impact on the team’s productivity and thus the bottom line. And it requires a mid-level amount of effort to rearrange the space and add the desks. But, to do that, you need hire an IT specialist to reconfigure the wiring and put the additional computers on the Network throughout the office. That is also high impact because it is needed in order for the new hires to be productive. But it is also high effort because they have to run wiring throughout the space and set up work stations so that all computers are networked to the servers and can print to the various wireless printers. Getting the computers networked may be more effort and therefore a major project in Quadrant 2, but since it affects the task that has the highest-impact — expanding the office space to accommodate more people — it must be completed first.
In Scrum prioritization, each task is evaluated using three criteria:
- How important is this task?
- How important is it compared to the other tasks on this list?
- Is any other task dependent on this task?
Using the answers to those questions, a number is assigned – 1 “T”. (“T” represents the total number of tasks on the list). There can’t be two tasks that are #1. One task has to be #1 and another can be #2. Every task gets a unique number based on Impact. 1T, 2T, 3T, 4T, etc. The wiring of the computers would be 1T and then the rearranging of the desks would be 2T. They might be in different quadrants to reflect effort, but they would still be prioritized based on impact and sequence.
Modify the Matrix to your Needs
Keep in mind that, depending on the person’s career and type of business, alternative measurements can be used on that axis. For example, for attorneys at a law firm, they can measure impact in terms of revenue and effort in terms of hours. Tasks can then be ranked to determine which are Quick Wins and Major Projects so that those consume most billable hours, while Fill-In Tasks such as writing follow-up letters can be delegated to support staff and thankless tasks such as abstracting leases for a real estate client can be outsourced to a firm that specializes in abstracting leases.
Pros and Cons of an Action Priority Matrix
There are a lot of benefits to using an Action Priority Matrix including the ability to rank and categorize tasks in order to focus on what is going to generate the greatest impact and requires the least effort. This is a great way to get everyone on a team to think about what is the highest and best use of their time. However, an Action Priority Matrix won’t help prioritize projects within the same category. Prioritization matrices cannot do a good job of evaluating projects based on multiple criteria, and therefore cannot do a thorough job of distinguishing important projects from less important projects.
Quote of the Week
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” Stephen Covey
© 2023, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
