When Everything Is A Priority

If everything in your operation is a priority, you may have just found your problem.

Especially if you’re staring at a backlog wondering why everyone is incredibly busy but nothing moves quickly enough.

The sensible response is to prioritise.

Oldest. Urgent. Complaints. About to breach.

Which is exactly what I used to think.

Years ago, I developed a slightly irritating habit.

I’d sit next to planners and ask:

“Why are you working on that application?”

They’d answer.

I’d point at another.

“Why not that one?”

Do this long enough and you discover something interesting.

Planners aren’t simply working through applications. They’re navigating invisible priority rules.

The easy one. The deadline. The customer shouting loudest. The one management suddenly wants. The difficult one already late.

Imagine trying to do a good job inside that lot.

Imagine we ran air traffic control the same way.

“Colin, bring that Dreamliner onto runway two.”

“Hmm. Let me check whether the councillor for Restalrig wants the Cessna first, Alan.”

Which brings me to Edinburgh.

This week, the Glasgow Herald reported that 2,400 planning applications were decided late.

The obvious explanation is capacity.

Too much work. Not enough planners.

Maybe.

Years ago, I studied planning departments in inner cities, towns, rural areas and Shetland.

I expected geography and complexity — and whether the boat from Yell was on time — to make a difference.

It didn’t.

The bigger difference was how the work was managed.

Planning applications are supposed to be determined within set timescales.

Sounds sensible.

Until the target becomes another priority rule.

Work approaching the deadline becomes urgent. Work already beyond it may become less so.

Day 58 is quite liberating. You can’t miss the 57-day target twice.

So old applications can end up at the back of the fridge while everyone checks the sell-by dates on the new ones.

Somewhere behind the yoghurt, March is growing its own penicillin.

Psychology makes this interesting.

Switching between complicated tasks has a cost. And when easier work is available, we tend to avoid cognitively demanding tasks.

So the difficult application isn’t only harder to finish.

It’s easier to put down.

That’s not bad planners. It’s bad work design.

So I’d study the system with the planners.

What causes switching?

What jumps the queue?

Then test whether limiting work improves progress.

Start less. Finish more.

Because there’s a wonderfully reasonable piece of management logic behind the alternative:

To clear a backlog, get everyone working really hard.

Sounds sensible.

Until everything is started and nothing gets finished.

So don’t give planners another target.

Give them fewer competing priorities and a fighting chance to win.

Same planners. Same hours.

Less switching. More finishing.

More control.

Sometimes the fastest way to clear work isn’t finding more capacity.

It’s getting more from the capacity you have.