For most project managers it is important to define the boundaries
for all projects. This is why the scope of every project is very crucial. A lot
of managers often make the mistake of thinking that the words urgent and
important mean the same. Let us examine what each mean.
It is possible to have a task at hand that is important yet the
same task is not urgent. Some of the loss of resources in most organizations
comes as a result of undue attention paid to urgent but less important tasks.
every project is made up of tasks and sub tasks and project managers should
carefully draw up project plans that prioritizes tasks in order of their
relevance and impact to the over all project success.
Effective project management involves starting out with the
essential tasks first. The leadership of organizations should be more focused with
deciding what activities should come first, but management pays attention to
the day by day and moment by moment execution of the activities.
Urgent and important are
the two factors that define an activity. Urgent implies that the task requires
immediate attention and rings aloud “Now!” tasks which are urgent act on us.
For example, a ringing phone is urgent; most people are unable to stand the
idea of ignoring a ringing phone. On the other hand, you could have spent hours
preparing materials, taken the minutest step in getting cutely dressed up and
traveled to a person’s office to discuss an issue you had both scheduled for.
If the phone happens to ring while you were there, it would usually take
precedence over your visit. If you have noticed there are not many people who
would respond to a phone call and say “could you hold on for me, I’ll speak
with you in 20 minutes”, but very many persons would probably let you wait that
long in an office while they complete a phone conversation with someone else
with whom there was probably no earlier scheduled appointment.
·
Urgent tasks are generally visible. They insist on immediate
action and press on us. They’re usually popular with others and stare right in
front of us. Urgent activities are generally pleasant, fun and easy to do but
they largely are unimportant.
·
Importance has to do with output, outcome or results. If a task is
important, it contributes a lot to your mission, vision, values and your high priority
goals. We react to urgent matters. In sharp contrast, important matters that
are not urgent will need more initiative.
The urgent and important tasks deal with substantive amount of
results that often require immediate response. Tasks that fall under this
category are often called ‘problems’ or ‘crises’. Some of these kinds of
activities consume a lot of people including mangers at projects. If you focus
your entire life at such activities, they keep getting bigger until they
dominate you completely. Individuals in this category generally manage their
life by crises and they reap the results of stress, crises management, burnout,
and always putting out fires.
Urgent but not important
tasks: these tasks are often urgent but usually have very low priority level.
When you deal with these kinds of tasks you discover that you spend most of
your time reacting to matters whose urgency is usually based on the
expectations of and priorities of others. These activities produce results that
have short term focus, see plans and goals as worthless. Individuals, who deal
with these activities, often have broken or shallow relationships, they fall
out of control, victimized and often display chameleon character.
Not urgent, not important tasks: these activities do not add any
progress to projects at hand. They basically create basis for laziness.
Individuals indulging in not urgent, not important activities show total
irresponsibility and are heavily dependent on others.
Effective project managers
carefully consider the activities they are engaged in, they deal with activities
that are important but not
necessarily urgent. They focus of building relationships, exercising, long term
planning, preparation and preventive maintenance. They make careful
considerations, allowances and adjustments in taking actions on important but
not urgent tasks
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