Task Prioritization Methods

I've tried 100s of time management techniques.  This is by far my favourite: I used to work 80 hrs/week and call it "productive." When really I was: - Attending pointless meetings - Fighting countless small fires - Being involved in every decision Now I work less than 70% the time and get 4x as much done. The Eisenhower Matrix helped me get there.  It teaches you to categorise tasks by importance and urgency. Here's how it works: 1. Do It Now (Urgent + Important) Examples: - Finalise pitch deck before investor meeting tomorrow. - Fix website crash during peak customer traffic. - Respond to press interview request before deadline. Best Practices: - Attack these tasks first each morning with full focus. - Set a strict deadline so urgency fuels execution. 2. Schedule It (Important + Not Urgent) Examples: - Plan quarterly strategy session with leadership team. - Map long-term hiring plan for next 18 months. - Build a personal brand content system for LinkedIn. Best Practices: - Protect time blocks in advance. Never leave them floating. - Tie them to measurable outcomes, not vague intentions. 3. Delegate It (Urgent + Not Important) Examples: - Handle inbound customer service queries this week. - Organise travel logistics for upcoming conference. - Update CRM with latest sales call notes. Best Practices: - Build playbooks so your team executes without confusion. - Delegate with deadlines to avoid wasting time. 4. Eliminate It (Not Urgent + Not Important) Examples: - Tweak logo colour palette again for fun. - Attend generic networking events with no ICP fit. - Review endless “best productivity tools” articles. Best Practices: - Audit weekly. Cut anything that doesn’t compound long-term. - Replace low-value busywork with rest, thinking, or selling. If you are always reacting to what feels urgent,   You'll never focus on what matters. Attend to the tasks in quadrant 1 efficiently,  Then spend 60-70% of your time in quadrant 2.    That's work that actually builds your business. Which quadrant are you spending too much time in right now?  Drop your thoughts in the comments. My newsletter, Step By Step, breaks down more frameworks like this. It's designed to help you build smarter without burning out. 200k+ builders use it to develop better systems. Join them here:  https://lnkd.in/eUTCQTWb ♻️ Repost this to help other founders manage their time.  And follow Chris Donnelly for more on building and running businesses. 

Evaluating LLMs is hard. Evaluating agents is even harder. This is one of the most common challenges I see when teams move from using LLMs in isolation to deploying agents that act over time, use tools, interact with APIs, and coordinate across roles. These systems make a series of decisions, not just a single prediction. As a result, success or failure depends on more than whether the final answer is correct. Despite this, many teams still rely on basic task success metrics or manual reviews. Some build internal evaluation dashboards, but most of these efforts are narrowly scoped and miss the bigger picture. Observability tools exist, but they are not enough on their own. Google’s ADK telemetry provides traces of tool use and reasoning chains. LangSmith gives structured logging for LangChain-based workflows. Frameworks like CrewAI, AutoGen, and OpenAgents expose role-specific actions and memory updates. These are helpful for debugging, but they do not tell you how well the agent performed across dimensions like coordination, learning, or adaptability. Two recent research directions offer much-needed structure. One proposes breaking down agent evaluation into behavioral components like plan quality, adaptability, and inter-agent coordination. Another argues for longitudinal tracking, focusing on how agents evolve over time, whether they drift or stabilize, and whether they generalize or forget. If you are evaluating agents today, here are the most important criteria to measure: • 𝗧𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀: Did the agent complete the task, and was the outcome verifiable? • 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Was the initial strategy reasonable and efficient? • 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Did the agent handle tool failures, retry intelligently, or escalate when needed? • 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲: Was memory referenced meaningfully, or ignored? • 𝗖𝗼𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀): Did agents delegate, share information, and avoid redundancy? • 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲: Did behavior remain consistent across runs or drift unpredictably? For adaptive agents or those in production, this becomes even more critical. Evaluation systems should be time-aware, tracking changes in behavior, error rates, and success patterns over time. Static accuracy alone will not explain why an agent performs well one day and fails the next. Structured evaluation is not just about dashboards. It is the foundation for improving agent design. Without clear signals, you cannot diagnose whether failure came from the LLM, the plan, the tool, or the orchestration logic. If your agents are planning, adapting, or coordinating across steps or roles, now is the time to move past simple correctness checks and build a robust, multi-dimensional evaluation framework. It is the only way to scale intelligent behavior with confidence.

Intentional change starts with making choices and setting priorities. But, how to decide what to do, what not to do, and what to do first? Use the Four Buckets of Change. There are many approaches to decision-making and priority setting. There’s the Eisenhower Matrix (Urgency vs. Importance), the Effort-Ease Matrix (Effort vs. Ease…) and a whole set of complex analytical techniques. My approach is different. Instead of using a set of criteria to evaluate possible initiatives, I’d rather think about such decisions in terms of categories, or buckets of initiatives. There are four of them: 1. Quick Wins. Initiatives that require low effort and that create goodwill and immediate change and results.  2. Major Leaps. Initiatives that make a high impact and address fundamental changes that need to be made.  3. Critical Steps. Initiatives that are necessary to enable or start other, often more important initiatives.  4. Energy Boosters. Initiatives that cause excitement and motivate people, preferably for a longer time. All four are important:  • Miss Quick Wins, and it takes too long before anything happens. • Miss Major Leaps, and the real issues are never addressed. • Miss Critical Steps, and you run into problems later on. • Miss Energy Boosters, and the change process stagnates.   The trick is to see them as categories and not as criteria. So, instead of evaluating every option or initiative against all four, you select one or more initiatives in every category. At any point in time, I try to make sure that there is at least one thing going on in each of them. In this way, you are focusing both on the decisions and changes that make a difference for the organization (through Major Leaps and Critical Steps) and at the same time keep your people engaged (through Quick Wins and Energy Boosters). Now, look at your organization and how it is making progress with its strategy implementation, change efforts, or projects. Are all four buckets filled? And if not, which one(s) are missing? → Join my community and subscribe to my Soulful Strategy newsletter here:https://lnkd.in/e_ytzAgU #changemanagement #decisionmaking #developmentgoals

Starting a new PMM role can feel like you're juggling a million tasks all at once. 🤯 So, how do you prioritize what to tackle first? Here’s where the Action Priority Matrix comes in. This simple 2x2 matrix helps you categorize tasks based on Impact and Effort, allowing you to quickly identify "Quick Wins" and strategically plan larger projects. Here’s how you can make it work for you: 1️⃣ List all your tasks for the week (or another time period you prefer). 2️⃣ Rate the impact: For each task, ask yourself how impactful it is on a scale of 0-10. Remember, impact is about how crucial it is to the company’s and team’s key goals. 3️⃣ Evaluate the effort: Then, score the effort required to complete each task. 3️⃣ Plot your tasks on a 2x2 matrix and group them into 4 categories: -----> Quick Wins: Focus here to build early wins and gain confidence. -----> Major Projects: Plan these strategically. Break them into smaller milestones and turn them into quick wins, or seek additional resources. -----> Fill-Ins: Tackle these when you have downtime, or reduce the scope if possible. ----->Thankless Tasks: Avoid these. Delegate or eliminate them! The image shows some sample PMM activities grouped by category - bear in mind these are just examples :) Once you have your priorities mapped out, turn them into an easy to consume list and communicate them to your manager and get their feedback. This is a great way to show that you’re organized and disciplined. Don't be afraid to ask for support—or politely push back by explaining why some tasks may need to be prioritized. Over the years, this simple yet powerful framework has helped my clients achieve more results while avoiding burnout. What has worked for you? #ProductMarketing #newjob #coaching #growth #tech

With the explosion of agentic AI we need benchmarks for agents, not just for AI models. A new agent benchmark of 175 typical enterrpise tasks across diverse job roles offers valuable insights into the operational readiness of AI agents for organizations, and how they can best be deployed in organizations, both today and as their capabilities evolve. A group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Duke University have built “TheAgentCompany” benchmark. (see comments for link to paper). The biggest takeaway was the relatively poor performance, with the top performing model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, autonomously performing just 24% of tasks. But the study revealed a range of valuable insights, including: 💡 Task Structure, Creation, and Curation. TheAgentCompany benchmark includes 175 tasks designed to simulate realistic workplace scenarios across diverse job roles such as software engineering, project management, finance, and HR. Tasks are structured with clear intents, intermediate checkpoints, and programmatic evaluators to assess progress and outcomes. Over 3,000 person-hours were invested in creating and validating tasks. 🤖 Strengths and Weaknesses of AI Agents. The benchmark revealed that AI agents excel at tasks with clear, well-defined goals, such as writing code, retrieving data, or executing discrete commands. However, they struggled with long-horizon tasks requiring multiple steps to achieve a goal, such as setting up and configuring software or managing complex project workflows. Social interaction tasks, like collaborating with simulated colleagues, proved difficult, as agents often failed to interpret conversational context or follow up appropriately. 🔄 Specialization and Uneven Performance. AI agents performed significantly better in technical tasks, such as software engineering, than in administrative or financial tasks. While coding-related tasks benefited from the availability of structured data and clear objectives, agents struggled with tasks that involved managing spreadsheets, filling out forms, or synthesizing data from multiple sources. This shows a training bias toward coding-related tasks. 📊 Partial Completion Metrics Provide Actionable Feedback. TheAgentCompany uses an innovative scoring system that assigns points for intermediate checkpoints, rewarding partial progress while strongly incentivizing full task completion. This approach captures the nuances of agent performance, enabling developers to identify where agents excel and where they fall short. 🌍 Promising Results from Open-Source Models. Among the open-weight models, Llama 3.3 demonstrated the strongest performance, achieving a success rate comparable to larger proprietary models like GPT-4o, but at significantly lower operational costs. While Llama 3.3’s performance still lagged behind the top-performing proprietary model, it showcased notable improvements in efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Risk Priority Number (RPN) 🔍 RPN is a numerical score used in Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to evaluate and prioritize risks associated with potential failure modes of a product or process. It helps teams focus on the most critical risks that need to be addressed. 🔢 Formula for RPN: RPN = Severity (S) × Occurrence (O) × Detection (D) -Severity (S): The potential impact of a failure. -Occurrence (O): The likelihood of the failure occurring. -Detection (D): The ability to detect the failure before it reaches the customer. Each of these factors is rated on a scale (usually 1 to 10), and the RPN score is the product of these ratings. ⚖️ Prioritizing Risk by 3 Factors: -Severity: How severe the failure would be. -Occurrence: The likelihood of the failure happening. -Detection: How likely the failure will be detected before it affects the customer. 📊 Risk Matrix: A Risk Matrix helps visualize and prioritize risks based on their Severity and Occurrence ratings, while the Detection rating influences how proactive we need to be in addressing those risks. 🔴 Color Coding in Risk Matrix: -Red: High risk, immediate action needed. -Yellow: Moderate risk, requires attention. -Green: Low risk, monitoring required. ✅ Benefits of RPN Matrix: -Provides a systematic way to evaluate and prioritize risks. -Helps allocate resources more effectively by focusing on the most critical risks. -Enhances decision-making by providing clear risk ratings. ⚠️ Disadvantages of RPN: -RPN does not always reflect the true level of risk, especially when factors like severity are not accurately considered. -Two failure modes with the same RPN may require different actions. -Over-reliance on RPN can lead to missing out on other critical aspects of risk. 🔑 Recommendations: - Combine RPN with Severity, Occurrence, and Detection ratings for a more accurate risk prioritization. - Use tools like FMECA for a more detailed and comprehensive risk analysis. Regularly update risk ratings to reflect new data and changes in operational conditions. 💬 Let’s Connect! Want to learn more about how RPN can improve your risk management strategy? Feel free to connect with me for insights or share your experiences with RPN! ====== 🔔 Consider following me at Govind Tiwari,PhD #RiskManagement #RPN #FMEA #BusinessStrategy #QualityAssurance #RiskAssessment #ContinuousImprovement #ProcessExcellence #quality #qms #iso9001 #iso3100

Want to tackle the most impactful data projects? Use the RICE scoring model to sort them by priority! RICE stands for Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. It’s a useful framework to prioritize tasks and projects effectively. 1. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵: Estimate how many people your project will affect. For example, how many teams will make decisions based on my results?     2. 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁: Estimate the potential benefit. Will this project bring significant improvements or minor enhancements? Rate it on a scale e.g., 1 to 5.     3. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲: Assess how confident you are in your estimates. High confidence boosts the project’s score, while low confidence lowers it. Be honest about your uncertainties regarding data quality and model complexity (0.0 to 1.0).     4. 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁: Calculate the time and resources required to complete the project. Measure it in person-hours or team-days. Less effort means a higher score. C͟a͟l͟c͟u͟l͟a͟t͟i͟o͟n͟ 𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 = (Reach × Impact × Confidence) / Effort E͟x͟a͟m͟p͟l͟e͟ You will reach 50 sales managers with your model and estimate an impact of 4 out 5 on their work. You're fairly certain about achieving your goal with a rate of 0.8. It will take you about 80 hours of work to build the model. 𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 = (50 × 4 × 0.8) / 80 𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 =  2 You can compare this score of 2 versus the other project scores and select the one with the highest value. Use the RICE model to sort and prioritize your data projects. It ensures you’re focusing on high-impact tasks that require reasonable effort and have solid confidence behind them. Regularly revisit and adjust your scores as new data or insights become available. This keeps your priorities aligned with changing business goals. By applying the RICE scoring model, you’ll increase the efficiency of your project management, ensuring you’re working on what truly matters. How do you currently prioritize your data projects? ---------------- ♻️ Share if you find this post useful ➕ Follow for more daily insights on how to grow your career in the data field #dataanalytics #datascience #rice #projectmanagement #prioritization

𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀. I do the opposite. No calls. No catch-ups. No sprint planning. Just uninterrupted space to work on the tasks that define my company’s future. Not rest. Not recovery. But high-leverage, high-impact work. The kind of work that sits in Quadrant 2 of the Eisenhower Matrix: → 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁. If you’re unfamiliar with the framework, here’s the quick breakdown: The Eisenhower Matrix splits tasks into 4 quadrants: 𝗨𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 + 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 → 𝗗𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗨𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 + 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 → 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝗨𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 + 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 → 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗨𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 + 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 → 𝗘𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 Most people live in Q1. Firefighting mode. Or Q3. Responding to noise. But Q2? That’s where the magic happens. That’s where strategy lives. Where vision evolves. Where long-term growth takes root. 𝗢𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀, 𝗜 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲: → Deep product thinking → Brand positioning shifts → Future offers → Key systems that don’t shout, but silently scale It’s not glamorous. You don’t get applause for doing it. But over time, Q2 work builds resilience. It builds IP. It builds the moat. So while others hustle through Monday… I build the foundation for everything I’ll be proud of 12 months from now. Let hustle have the urgency. I’ll take the impact. 𝗔𝗹𝘀𝗼, 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝟯𝟴/𝟯𝟱𝟬. 𝗣.𝗦. 𝗜 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀, 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗖𝗫𝗢𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁. 𝗗𝗠 𝗺𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻.

Time is the one thing you can’t buy. But how you manage it makes all the difference. Managing time effectively isn’t about doing more—it’s about focusing on what matters. Over my career, Stephen Covey’s Four-Quadrant Time Management Model has proven invaluable in helping me structure my priorities: 👉 Urgent & Important: These are crises and pressing problems—tasks that must be tackled immediately. 👉 Important but Not Urgent: Strategic thinking, relationship building, and planning belong here. They don’t demand attention now but drive long-term success. 👉 Not Important but Urgent: Delegate these—routine emails, some meetings, and minor distractions. 👉 Not Important & Not Urgent: Remove the trivia and time-wasters altogether. Beyond the quadrants, structuring your time is key. For me, this means: ✅ Daily 20-minute team meetings: These short check-ins help prioritise tasks and avoid wasted time. ✅ A streamlined email system: Using three folders—“Action,” “For Information,” and “Day File”—keeps my focus where it’s needed. ✅ Efficient meetings: Clear agendas, materials sent in advance, and decisions at the centre. It’s not just about managing my own time—it’s also about enabling those around me to do the same. Two-thirds of a leader’s time is spent with direct reports, so helping them be productive has a multiplier effect. Ultimately, the goal isn’t to pack more into each day—it’s to free up time for the things that matter most, like family, friends, and personal well-being. Time is precious. Managing it well can make all the difference.

Yesterday I posted about ways to help you work through your task list, but how do you know which order to do your tasks in? The first thing I do is create a to-do list. Start by listing all the tasks you need to complete. Having a clear view of your tasks is the first step in choosing what order to do them in. After creating my list, I then use a great tool called the Eisenhower Matrix that helps me prioritise tasks by how urgent and important they are. If you search online you can see how to draw the matrix, it's a simple diagram that allows you to put tasks into 4 categories: ⚠ Urgent and Important: These are top priority tasks that require immediate attention, like deadlines or emergencies. 💡 Important but Not Urgent: These tasks are significant but don't require immediate action. They are often related to long-term goals, planning, and personal growth. 😵 Urgent but Not Important: These tasks demand immediate attention but may not contribute significantly to your long-term goals. They can include interruptions or distractions. These are some of the worst types of tasks for getting in your way of achieving your goals. 😴 Neither Urgent nor Important: These are tasks that can be put on the back burner or delegated because they have minimal impact on your goals. Each of the quadrants on the diagram is associated with an action: ✔ Urgent and important tasks are labelled as "Do First". Get them put into your diary to do immediately. ✔ Important but not urgent tasks should be labelled as "Schedule" (and don't forget to schedule them!). ✖ Urgent but not important tasks should be labelled as "Delegate", or in some cases you may just want to push back and say "no". If it's not important, does it actually need to be done? ❌ Neither urgent nor important tasks should be tagged as "Don't Do" and take them off your list! See, we're getting rid of tasks already and we haven't even started doing them, whoop whoop! There are a few other things I consider when looking at my tasks: ❓ Consider Deadlines. If you have looming deadlines, they should often take precedence. But don't let a task's urgency overshadow its importance. Sometimes, long-term projects need attention even if there's no immediate deadline. ❓ Evaluate Impact and Consequences. Think about the potential impact each task has on your goals or the business. Consider the consequences of not completing a task and the benefits of completing it. ❓ Time and Energy Management. Take your own energy levels and the time of day into account. If you're most productive in the morning, tackle your most critical tasks then. Save routine or less demanding tasks for when your energy dips. My slump is around 3-4pm so I tend to keep that time for admin or fun tasks that are less pressured. Experiment with different methods and find what works best for you. It's all about aligning your efforts with your goals and making the most of your time and resources. #TaskManagement #Prioritising