Project Tasks Prioritization Strategies / Methods

Urgent-Important Matrix:

Using a simple grid, it defines tasks according to their importance and urgency:

• Quadrant 1 - URGENT and IMPORTANT - CRISIS
• Quadrant 2 - NON-URGENT and IMPORTANT - Goals and Planning
• Quadrant 3 - URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT - Interruptions
• Quadrant 4 - NOT URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT - Distractions

Ivy Lee Method

The Ivy Lee method is a 100-year-old strategy for helping people become more productive at work.

• Under the Ivy Lee method, at the end of each night you write down your six most important tasks to accomplish the following day in order of importance.
• The next day, you begin working on the tasks one at a time.
• The strategy works because it reduces "decision fatigue," saves you time, and forces you to prioritize your goals.

Ordering tasks by estimated Effort / Complexity vs Value

The Value vs. Effort matrix (also known as “Action Priority Matrix” or “Impact vs. Effort matrix”) is a lean prioritization approach which is useful in decision making and which helps to identify what is important (or risky) and where to direct the efforts.

When to use the Value vs. Effort matrix?

The Value vs. Effort matrix works great when you are in the early stages of new product development, for example when you are building a new product. With new products, this matrix can help a team uncover many low-hanging-fruit opportunities (i.e. high-impact initiatives requiring low effort of implementation).

Another good use case for this prioritization technique is when you have a strict deadline in the near future or very limited development resources (e.g. there is a need to identify MVP when you are building a product from scratch and have limited time or budget)