Using The Eisenhower Matrix for Better Prioritization in Product Management

“I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954 (quoting Dr. J. Roscoe Miller)        

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a remarkable guy — and incredibly productive too. A five-star army general in WW2, Eisenhower was also a 2-term President of the USA — a time during which he established NASA, signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act, and also helped keep America at peace despite the tumultuous international climate courtesy of the Cold War. By the time he retired, Eisenhower was a best-selling author, an amateur painter, and also a farmer. He was able to do all of these things because he understood the difference between Urgent and Important. No wonder, he was Gallup’s most admired man of the year a remarkable 12 times!

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” In his best-selling book — The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey used Eisenhower’s ideas and creared a simple yet powerful prioritization tool — The Eisenhower Matrix. Based on the twin principles of urgency and importance, the Eisenhower Matrix helps you prioritize tasks on the combination of how urgent and important they are.

Creating the Matrix

Consider the Eisenhower Matrix as a square with 4 boxes — with Urgency (Urgent and Non-Urgent) being marked on the x-axis while Importance (Non-Important and Important) being labeled on the y-axis. This will give you 4 quadrants —

Quadrant 1 (Upper Left)— Urgent and Important Quadrant 2 (Upper Right) — Not Urgent but Important Quadrant 3 (Lower Left)— Urgent but Not Important Quadrant 4 (Lower Right)— Not Urgent and Not Important

The Eisenhower Matrix in Action

The first step would be to make a complete list of actionables. I typically do this on Miro where each task becomes a virtual sticky note which goes into each of the 4 quadrants. If there were to be verbs that describe each quadrant, it would be — Do (or Do First) for 1; Schedule for 2; Delegate for 3 and Don’t Do (or even Delete!) for 4.

Do the items in Quadrant 1 — These are extremely urgent and important tasks that require your immediate attention. One should typically put in tasks that could be either defined as a crisis or deadlines that have consequences if not completed in a timely manner.

Schedule the items in Quadrant 2 — These are important tasks — ones that will help you and your organization achieve long-term goals but they don’t necessarily warrant immediate or urgent attention. So, it is best if you set aside time for these activities and come back to them in a disciplined manner.

Delegate the items in Quadrant 3 — These are tasks that are urgent but less important — so items that don’t necessarily require your time and expertise. It is best if you delegate these tasks to junior members of your team and let them handle it.

Don’t Do (or Delete!) the items in Quadrant 4 — These are items that are neither urgent nor important — say scrolling through your X feed; watching the highlights reel of yesterday’s game, etc. — these items maybe useful for breaktime but should not compromise your focus on items in the other quadrants (particularly 1). In fact, even busywork should always end up in the bin that Quadrant 4 is.

Eisenhower Matrix in the Product Management Parlance

When it comes to Product Management, this is what a typical Eisenhower Matrix will look like:

1. Quadrant 1 should always have tasks that have a direct and immediate impact on the product or business — so tasks like resolving a critical bug, responding to customer queries in a time-bound manner, ensuring that sprints are on time (and all necessary activities to ensure the same) should be in Quadrant 1.
2. Quadrant 2 will have items that will help meet the long-term goals of the product — building product roadmaps, updating them at regular intervals based on stakeholder reaction/ inputs, ensuring user stories and designs for upcoming sprints are in place, customer conversations and FGDs, etc.
3. Quadrant 3 will have lower-value items sat a Senior PM could delegate to junior members of their team. These could be attending daily SCRUMs, coming up with the first draft of feature backlogs, responding to customer emails, etc.
4. Quadrant 4 will vary depending on the hobbies/ likes of the PM, but say for me it will be checking out scores on ESPN Cricinfo, going through popular trends on X, or delving into xG stats for last night’s football match — all completely avoidable items.

It is important to note here that within the product team, each individual could end up having a different matrix based on their role and responsibilities. For example, Writing User Stories will be a Quadrant 1 item for Product Owners and Product Managers, however, it is always likely to be a Quadrant 3 item for a Product Director. Similarly writing the copy of a marketing email will be a Quadrant 3 (Delegate) activity for a PM, while it will be a Quadrant 1 activity for a Product Marketing Associate.

Benefits of using this Matrix + Challenges to be wary of

1. By bringing the focus of the relevant stakeholders back on items that demand their attention and expertise, the matrix helps in improving the overall productivity and efficiency of teams.
2. The matrix puts the overall goals of the product at its centre and therefore helps teams become better at decision-making and problem-solving.
3. The matrix also helps teams understand what each of them is doing thereby ensuring greater alignment and also more streamlined communication.

An important thing to note here is that Urgency and Importance are the two key foundational principles of this matrix and it is extremely easy for subjectivity to creep into decision-making calls — what is urgent for A, may not be so much for B. It is critical to ensure that the criteria and metrics to define urgency and importance are objectively arrived at and consensus have been taken from all relevant stakeholders.

Also, once finalized, it is important to ensure that the matrix is reviewed at regular intervals so that it is not out of sync. Also, as always, it is imperative to be flexible at all times — there will always be events that affect your tasks — so these need to be accounted for.

If you have an evergrowing list of tasks and are yet to formally start using a prioritization framework, then the Eisenhower Matrix is an excellent option to start with. Start with setting goals that are realistic, measurable, and achievable in a time-bound manner, create manageable sub-tasks out of bigger chunks of work so that it can fit into the quadrants, start performing the tasks and most importantly review the matrix at regular intervals.