What are Your Management Priorities?

In my last post, I described 10 priorities for successful service delivery. It is a list of priorities that I find helpful when deciding where to focus my efforts. I have used it in the past to develop a five-year strategic plan. I have also used it as the outline for sole-source purchase justifications. However, you have to understand what it is and what it is not to have it be useful. The right tool for the right job is as important in management as it is in carpentry.

Despite their appearance in a numbered list, they are not a sequence of steps. You should not attempt to complete these items in order before introducing a service. If you get nothing else out of this post, get this: These are not steps for you to execute in sequence. These are priorities.

In addition, this is not a checklist. Just as it is not a list of steps for you to execute in sequence, it is also not a list of steps for you to execute in parallel. These are priorities. You do not have to complete all of these items before introducing a service.

What are Priorities? Priorities are items for you to consider when planning what to do next. They are guides when you are trying to develop guidance.

Consider the first three priorities from my list: Function, Capacity, and Reliability.

Say you are currently idle — hypothetically. You have completed all of your work. You are trying to decide what to do next. You could do anything but the institution hired you to do something. Think about your function first in deciding what to do. A jack-of-all-trades is master of none. If you focus on what you do, the institution will be better off than if you are trying to perform many unrelated functions.

Now say that you have decided to do something. Hurray! Doing something is better than doing nothing. Someone benefits where nobody benefited before. This is a start. If you had waited until you had the rest of the priorities covered, nobody would benefit now. That is interesting because, in addressing the “Function” priority first, you probably did something cheap, easy, and quick. That means you probably also addressed the “Budget,” “Parity,” and “Timeliness” priorities.

You have been doing your something for a while. Enough time has passed that you can tell the need for the function is real and you are planning what to do next. Now think about capacity. Is there enough of the function to go around? How much do you need and where do your users need it most? Is it simply a question of more, or does it have to be different? What changes do you need to make? Consider these issues and make your plans.

As you went through this stage of planning, your solution probably was not in the “cheap, easy, and quick” category any more. You had to consider its cost, and when you spend money, you thought about where you were spending the money. In considering potential solutions, you considered what other similar institutions had done before you. That means you addressed the “Budget,” “Welfare,” and “Standing” priorities.

Time passes, you implement your plans, and you now provide a useful function with enough capacity to service your intended audience. Where you focus your efforts next is on making it more reliable. The questions you ask yourself are similar to the ones you asked while increasing your capacity. Is it reliable enough? How much reliability does it need and where do users need it most? Is more enough or does it have to be different? What changes do you need to make? Consider these and make your plans.

So you see that the crux of these priorities is this: Something, More, Better. Do something. Then work on doing more. When you have enough, focus on doing better.

These priorities are a tool to help guide your thoughts as you plan what you will do next in service of the institution.

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