How to prioritize your work ? – Management for Engineers Series

PRIORITIZATION STARTS WITH THE THINGS THAT MAKE PRIORITIZATION EASIER.

💭 I made my biggest mistakes by NOT prioritizing the right things at the right time. Especially in Engineering, we tend to over-commit because we like to build.

Over time I learned some ways to reduce the the number of things to prioritize and I started applying 2 🔑 methods that made my life simpler and delivering more because I could prioritize WAAAY better.

🔑 #1 — 5S

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology)

It’s a Japanese Lean method, that I personally apply after each iteration or increment of work be it a week or 3 months. You can read more about it here:

https://www.isixsigma.com/tools-templates/5s/practical-approach-successful-practice-5s/

or watch here:

https://youtu.be/8gKJ3_Hm3dM

🈶🈚️ How to apply 5S?🈺🈷️

• Sort: Rearrange your SharePoint regularly, your folders to make access to new things easier, delete or archive old stuff. Don’t waste more than 5 seconds to find a file.
• Set in Order: Pin or Put key software, contacts and processes to very accessible places. In your shared folders or cubicles, have a “Key ℹ️” space
• Shine: Literally clean your code, workspace, 💻 . THIS IS MY FAVORITE. We do it with our code every Friday. We call it “The 5S Friday”
• Standardize: When things are recurrent, write a procedure in 5 minutes and put in your procedures folder. Or automate it. I hate no 🧠 activities but they must be done ✅.
• Sustain: It’s though. But you need to do it regularly and again “Don’t let it slip”. A hint: announce the small wins of 5S to all because it encourages to do more.

🔑 #2 — Remove Technical Debt

Source: https://www.pentalog.com/blog/technical-debt-crash-course

1. Context: Writing things to be done in SOME “future” so that we don’t forget.
2. Problem: This “future” never comes. You will never do them. You will always see them. You will carry them and push hard to fix them. You will exhaust everyone.
3. Solution: Every week, remove everything that you consider not essential after working 1 week. Review the WHOLE list.
4. Ask the question: Is this thing Core or Not? If it is NOT Core, remove.. If in 2 weeks, it becomes Core.. 👍 Put it back.

You can read more about it here:

https://hackernoon.com/there-are-3-main-types-of-technical-debt-heres-how-to-manage-them-4a3328a4c50c

or watch about it here:

https://youtu.be/vLRH0HCXZek

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed.

I write, teach and coach engineers to become leaders of tomorrow.

Find out more about Management for Engineers on https://emregency.com