Do Your Priorities Compete?
Scanning position openings and seeing the continuous stream of “…multiple projects with competing priorities…” easily gives the sense that many companies are awash with internal tug-of-war matches that do not have clear resolutions. What happened to alignment and traceability between priorities and activities? What happened to being clear about what an organization is trying to accomplish?
Prioritize Priorities
Priorities that appear to conflict do not need to be managed, they need to be prioritized. In an earlier article, I wrote about ways to deconflict priorities, and that recommendation stands. When organizational priorities appear to be at odds, it means most simply that it is not clear which priority is more important than any other. This is a clarity problem, not a conflict.
Priorities are, by their nature, hierarchical, though many organizations fail to prioritize their priorities after drafting them. For example, if your priorities are something like:
- Ensure safe operation
- Deliver products on time
- Innovate new products
There is no guidance on what priority one should diminish for the benefit of another. Do you compromise safety to achieve maximum throughput? I hope not, but it is not clear by how they are stated.
