Mastering Prioritisation: How to Choose the Most Important Goals 

In the fast-paced world of business, it’s important to ensure effective prioritisation when it comes to goals. There may be several different goals that you want to aim for within a set period of time, how do you figure out which one is the most important? 

Here are four different methods available to help determine the importance of goals or tasks. 

Voting

This is a common way for groups to achieve agreement. Simply compile a list of tasks or goals, and have each participant vote by indicating priorities of each one. 

This helps to give a more generalised view on what is important, and gives the opportunity for discussion between the group to come to a general conclusion.  

Matrix 

Create a grid and categorise tasks based on importance and ease of implementation. This matrix grid should have four sections that cover high and low for importance, and high and low for the ease of implementation. If you don’t have the space to draw a grid, this can be done as a list with the following headings: 

1. High Importance and High Ease 

1. High Importance and Low Ease 

1. Low Importance and High Ease 

1. Low Importance and Low Ease 

Add the tasks that are of high importance and high ease first, and then work your way through the grid. 

Paired Comparison Analysis 

This is a way to score each goal’s importance against another goal. Score 3 for much more important, 0 for equal. Note which goals are scoring as most important from this, and manage the priority list from the results.  

This method is ideal for situations where the goals need to be directly compared when assessing their importance. 

Weighted Scoring  

Develop a list of scoring criteria. This could include return on investment or customer satisfaction for example. Once decided, assign weights to each criteria based on the importance, for example 1 is not very important whereas 5 is very important.  

Score each goal against this criteria, and then use the totals to determine priority. 

Adopting a systematic approach to managing goals helps with efficiency and creating focus. The methods above are helpful ways to streamline this task to help ensure business success. Have you taken a look at goal priorities this year?