What is One Task List?

One Task List is the practice of managing an organization's work in a single, integrated environment.  

It's about focusing on the work, to ensure the right work is done at the right time by the right people.  It might be part of an elaborate plan, as defined by formal project management software.  It might be defined on the fly, and prioritized with the narrow view of "what must be done today".  However, the point is: focus on the work.

The Distinction

One Task List and traditional "project portfolio management" practices are polar opposites in an important way:

• Traditional approaches and tools place primary focus on planning, to the point that managers should plan their people's assignments weeks or months in advance.  Many organizations find that, in reality, many of their people are not actually following today's plan (see What is wrong with the status quo?).  If the plan for today isn't being followed, why waste your time planning what the same people will be doing in 2 months?

• One Task List, on the other hand, places primary focus on managing the work.  If today's efforts can be aligned and kept on track, then whatever longer-term planning you do has value.  In short, you should plan everything that the team does as far in advance as possible.  But if the plans aren't actually followed, they aren't adding value.

What Value Is One Task List Providing?

One Task List helps teams to be more competitive, because they can accomplish more by organizing more effectively.  Redundant activities are detected before they consume resources, and it becomes easier to know what truly should be done today.  See Timing is everything?

Executives and managers enjoy the approach because they know that their organizations are empowered in a more meaningful way than ever before.

• Decisions can be made, and priorities can be set, by the right person or committee at any given time with current, relevant information.  While traditional approaches appear to help executives make directional decisions at a high level concerning larger budget items, One Task List helps people decide specifically what should be done right now.  This is what drives the actual efficiency of the workers, and hence, the work.

• With One Task List, managers can understand the impact of their decisions on the current workload and show regard for their people by knowing this before interrupting.  Not surprisingly, managers often find out that they prefer to leave the priorities alone, and defer their new ideas to a future date.

Knowledge workers like it better because it directly confronts the potentially negative aspects of being "empowered".  

• Empowerment is supposed to be a partnership between management and their people which allows the individual to participate in decision-making as it applies to their role.  The leadership establishes strategic goals, and specific expectations are jointly established with the team based on what the team believes it can accomplish.  Then, the team manages itself to satisfy the goals that they helped to set.  The process develops a positive sense of ownership in the management of the organization.  

However, many knowledge workers have become increasingly frustrated with the results.  It's common that they have to work longer days to meet their own commitments because they have more interruptions and reactive work than expected.  If there is no centralized system to reflect the actual work that's going on, management doesn't have the ability to measure and monitor the workload.  The price of the interruptions is paid by the empowered worker.  For management, ignorance is not bliss because they know when people are overworked and frustrated.  The longer-term implications are rarely positive.

One Task List de-mystifies the workload by making it all visible.  Many organizations practice it with the same empowerment principles described above, except that interruptions or reactive work are first assigned to managers or project managers.  Then, it becomes natural to re-prioritize as needed, with a fair opportunity to revisit overall delivery commitments if the workload has changed.  This process places accountability for matching resource capacity to workload back into the hands of management.  

• When managers themselves assign ad-hoc work that conflicts with existing priorities, it becomes very easy to determine the direct impact on the workload.  It is no longer theoretical, based on a high-level 6-month long project plan.  With One Task List, the knowledge worker can easily point to their specific "do-ing list" and ask, "What would you like me to not do?".  

Overall, organizations benefit from One Task List because it helps to drive realistic expectations.  Organizations develop an understanding of why their expectations may have been too high in the past, why the overhead costs of running a business have increased substantially in recent years, and how to quickly identify seemingly-important work that is not important enough to be done right now.  One Task List provides much-needed context to the prioritization of work in a rapidly changing business.

>>> Next: "What is wrong with the status quo?"