Task order matters

Imagine you had a GPS.  That gave you all the correct turns.  But not in the right order. 

Not helpful. 

A lot of project management software is kind of like that GPS.   Lists and list of tasks but no apparent order.  And sometimes it’s because the software is hard to work with.  But others it’s because no one spends the time to enforce order. 

It’s absolutely important to get every task, issue, and concern recorded in some central place.  “If it’s not on the list, it doesn’t exist”. 

But that’s only the start.  They need to be organized.  For example, a client had 175+ reporting requests.  But, with some thought, they fell into 5 basic groups.  And after applying those groups, we could see that we had about 20 fundamental deliverables.  A lot less than 175 tasks. 

Creating a structure is not a one-time event. Every new request, every task, every issue, needs to be seen as part of that structure. And of course, the structure will evolve over time.  But you always have to go back to that structure. 

Because 10 random turns won’t get you anywhere.