It’s always about priorities

It's always about priorities

No matter the size or type of technology project, you will always be faced with choosing priorities. What gets done first, what gets done second, what will be saved for Phase 2 (or "phase later" as I like to call it). Every project requires you to determine your priorities.

So how do you choose? Here are some suggestions:

  1. Are there political priorities? That is, are there things that mustget done because your board or your members or your BOSS expect them to get done?
  2. Does the priority have tremendous value? In other words, if we make this a priority, will it return higher value than that other priority?
  3. Is it low-hanging fruit/will it demonstrate a quick win? This is similar to a political priority. Often with very large projects, in order to demonstrate real progress, it's helpful to prioritize small but significant "wins" in order to earn goodwill from important audiences (these could be your staff, your board, and/or your members/customers).

These are just a couple of suggestions. You may have other ways of identifying priorities (e.g., we have the money/budget for this priority but not that one). But regardless of how you get there, you're going to have to prioritize how things get done. If you don't prioritize, the loudest or most insistent voice will set the priority. And that's unlikely to give you the best results.

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