What do you do if your tasks are piling up and time is running out in product management?

Prioritizing tasks is crucial for a product manager to avoid overwhelming workloads and missed deadlines. By focusing on high-impact tasks first, they can ensure essential project milestones are met, preventing tasks from piling up. Effective prioritization also allows for better time management, enabling product managers to allocate resources efficiently and maintain project momentum. Ultimately, prioritization helps product managers stay organized, reduce stress, and deliver successful outcomes within established timelines.

Task avalanche in product land? Don't panic! Eisenhower Matrix to the rescue Think of it as a battleground. Urgent tasks are barbarians at the gate, important ones are your kingdom's future Do First (Urgent & Important): Critical bug fix? Barbarian chieftain! Address it now Schedule Later (Important but Not Urgent): New feature polish? Can wait. Schedule for calmer times Delegate (Urgent but Important): Someone freaking about fonts? Unleash your knights (colleagues) to handle it Discard (Not urgent & Not Important): Tasks in the museum of irrelevance? Toss them like yesterday's news Ruthless prioritization is key. Conquer the urgent, delegate the rest, and your product empire will rise. Just remember to nap-slaying to-do lists is exhausting

Great question. When you take on too many projects at once that don't have clear direction or expectations, this can certainly happen. If I am in this scenario, I am taking all of my projects and building a master spreadsheet where I will compile the top-level information for each project. This could include (but not limited to): 1. quick scope of project 2. time requirement 3. difficulty level 4. revenue potential 5. Other key features From there, I would prioritize the projects and only focus on the top ones, putting the others on hold. There is only so much you can do at once. If you take on too much, you will burn-out and can easily make mistakes.

As a product manager, when tasks start piling up and time seems to be slipping away, it's essential to prioritize ruthlessly. Identify the most critical tasks that directly contribute to achieving your product goals and focus on those first. Delegate tasks that others can handle effectively, and don't hesitate to seek help when needed. Additionally, streamline processes, eliminate unnecessary meetings or distractions, and break down complex tasks into smaller, manageable chunks. Remember, it's about working smarter, not harder, to ensure you meet your deadlines and deliver a successful product.

1. Categorize tasks based on the type of work, functional need/specification, responsible team, and impacted modules/areas, and define RACI matrices for broader categories. 2. After categorization, refine the list further, sub-categorize into sub-tasks (tools such as JIRA and Excel may be used for the same). 3. Identify dependencies and activities that may be completed in series v/s in parallel (while also identifying any activities or bodies of work being completed due to other activities). 4. Draft an action plan and establish relevant metrics for tracking progress over set timelines. Timelines and action plans without monitoring and evaluation mechanisms do not yield expected outcomes.

Backlog refinement is the place to break down your team's tasks together collaboratively. If you have personal tasks as a product manager that are piling up, try transferring the skills you use in backlog sessions to your personal backlog. Make sure everything has clear acceptance criteria and you understand the scope - that might mean limiting a task to, for example, reaching a certain metric, rather than continuing until it's "fully" or optimally completed.

A tower of tasks to climb can be overwhelming, however, if you climb the stairs floor by floor, it becomes a little easier. You can take breaks on each floor and then strategize how you're going to move on to the next floor.

I use the following principle when dealing with my time: things that do not have a day, time, and duration (in cases explained shortly) set up in the calendar, won't get done. Everything I need to accomplish that requires any sort of effort higher than 15 minutes becomes an event in my Google Calendar. Everything else less than that length, be it a FUP, email, message, etc becomes a Task. It has been working like a charm for more than a decade.

I make an effort to time block my day the night before, so I have a set time to complete all tasks. The issue I noticed with to-do lists is that some things keep getting pushed back and there is no set time to complete the tasks. This has helped me significantly as a Product Manager because I now have focused work time for critical tasks, admin-related work, meetings, as well as fire drills that come up during the workday (you would be surprised how many there are).

The best framework I came across lately that had a huge impact on my daily planning is Shreyas Doshi's LNO. L: tasks that are "levers" to 10x your impact. Put all your effort and attention to do your best on them. N: "neutral" tasks that need to be done but are not worth too much effort. Put a decent amount of time to have them done. O: "overhead", or low to no value added; yet, needs to be done. Delegate it or get rid of them yourself as quickly as possible.

For a product manager to manage overwhelming tasks amidst a fixed deadline, one of the important step is to delegate a few tasks. As a product manager, I delegate tasks that align with my development team members' strengths and skill sets, ensuring efficiency and quality. Before that, we collectively ensure that the tasks are prioritised based on urgency, complexity and dependencies, then assign (in most cases pick) them to capable team members. Clearly communicate expectations, provide necessary resources, and offer support when needed. Regular check-ins help track progress and ensure tasks are completed effectively, allowing everyone to focus on strategic priorities. Together we are, together we do, together we succeed!

Dear Product Managers, do not seek "Inbox Zero"! If you don't have a huge list of tasks that you don't have time for, you're doing it wrong. There should always be more things that you, your team, and your customers want to get done. The difference between a junior and senior product manager is the ability to organize and prioritize the tasks coming at you. A key part of prioritization is the ability to say "No" with empathy and explaining what else you're doing instead (without too much detail or committing to specific dates). Masters of Scale has a great podcast episode on this topic called "Let Fires Burn." It will feel very uncomfortable to not address obvious bugs, but trying to fix them all is a Sisyphean task.

Quais os indicadores do seu fluxo de delivery? Você está conseguindo acabar suas tarefas? Priorizar implica em reduzir WIP (Work in Progresso) e aumentar suas chances de come?ar a acabar. Qual sua vaz?o?