Competing Priorities: Have you ever worked on a project, when a high-priority task required teamwork between 2 or more team member. One team member is sincerely trying to work on the task, so as to not miss deadline; however, other team members assigned to same task, were assigned higher priority tasks to work on now. Due to dependencies, he/she cannot complete the task on his own. He tries to convince other team members, & their managers, to re-prioritize & co-work this task, however, no avail. What actions do you recommend, at this point? Looking forward to your suggestions. Thank you very much. Saving Changes...
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Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Is my daily life on projects (hehehe). The key is to anticipate this situations and to escalate to the people that is on charge to assign priorities. The escalation has sense to ask for help Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Sergio has the sensible path. The key is to take ownership by highlighting current state, potential impacts, and possible solutions. It will be up to the powers that be (those accountable) to reshuffle/reprioritize as appropriate.
Things change so often, with these reprioritization exercises taking place regularly. The team needs to be adaptive, with the right attitude, to continue their progressions, taking into account the reason for the efforts is to produce value, and these reprioritization exercises are generally in favor of that. Saving Changes...
If the project is being managed by a project manager, the PM, both team members and managers need to have a meeting to evaluate the priority and set up right expectations. Also senior management/stakeholder could be involved to determine which project is important to business or organization and then re-prioritize the tasks.
In case the team members who are assigned higher priority tasks cannot work on the project, the PM could request the managers to have new team members be assigned to their project for getting the tasks completed on time. Saving Changes...
John A. WilliamsOwner| JAW Consultancy | The PragmaticionerNootdorp, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
I anticipate this situation. At the beginning of the project, I emphasize to my sponsor and relevant stakeholders that my project members are dedicated to my project as agreed upon at the start. If others claim any of my project members without my knowing I will declare that as a risk issue and act accordingly. It's astonishing to see how the sponsor then takes ownership from the get-go. Saving Changes...
I really appreciate all your insightful ideas. For a task requiring multiple team members to work on the same task simultaneously, team members 100% dedicated to the same project are not agreeing to work on the same task at the same time. Their Managers are assigning them to work on different tasks that they consider higher priorities at that time. It's a PM challenge. Saving Changes...
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