How can you help team members prioritize competing tasks during a change management project?

I take a step back before getting into goals and talk about Mission and Values. This is often overlooked along with getting people on board by asking yourself questions such as, ? Is there alignment in terms of the need fir change? ? Are there common messages the team can leverage regarding the need for change? ? Do we have multiple types of evidence that will speak to multiple types of stakeholders?

In my experience aligning tasks to goals is vital for success as it provides focus, clarity, efficiency, accountability, motivation, and adaptability. It ensures that efforts are directed towards the desired outcomes and maximizes the chances of achieving the intended goals.

We can clearly differentiate tasks that require immediate attention (urgency) from those that contribute significantly to long-term goals (importance) also assessing the potential impact of each task on project success or objectives.

Since the environments in which I work often have unclear scope, I typically incorporate a "soft integration" of Agile since not everyone on the team may be versed in Agile concepts. I break the Mission ("Epic") into "Features" describing the Benefit Hypothesis and Acceptance Criteria. I then break the Features into "Stories" and place on a digital Kanban Board to further breakdiwn and prioritize into "Tasks". On the change management side, I ask the questions, ? Has a vision been clearly articulated? ? Is the team aligned around the vision? ? Is the vision simple and translate into day-to-day behaviors? ? Is the vision motivating, actionable and measurable? ? Does the vision reflect the interests and needs of key stakeholders?

In an Agile environment, you have DevOps team members, a Product Owner representing the voice of customer and a Scrum Master. Your stories are scoped to typically two week interations and then tasks sized and estimated (1-2-3-5-8-13) and placed on a velocity chart. On the change management side, I am asking these questions, ? Have we identified key stakeholders? ? Have we analyzed sources of resistance? ? Have we developed influence strategies to build commitment? ? Have we implemented those strategies and continued to refine them?

Agile accomplishes task management through events or "Artifacts" such as Backlog Refinement, Iteration Planning, Daily Standup, Iteration Review and Retrospectives using a kanban board layout. On the change management side, I'm asking questions such as, ? Have we celebrated early successes and milestones? ? Have we involved key stakeholders? ? Have we anticipated and planned for unexpected changes? ? How has the change effort been integrated? ? Have we altered (or used) existing systems and structures?

Agile artifacts and stories create the forum and structure for adaptive project management by ensuring three Cs in place: Card, Confirmation and Conversation. On the change management side, I'm also asking. ? Are individuals and teams accountable for results? ? Do we know which measures wil show progress tiwards the goal? ? Have we established ways to gather data? ? How has the team analyzed systems & structures to determine what to leverage, modify add or delete? ? What action plans have been developed to address key issues for institutionalizing the change? ? How will the team continue to review and track systems and structures for alignment?

Successful change or transformation begins with a plan. Build one with the Change Planning Toolkit? get everyone literally all on the same page for change and give people an easy reference for prioritization of any actions as the initiative proceeds.