In business, change is the norm, not the exception. As a result, markets evolve, what customers want changes, competitors take risks, and internal goals change. Whether you operate a startup or a team in a bigger organization, changing objectives is just part of the job.
The problem is that change doesn’t have to stop you from moving forward, even when it can’t be avoided. If you have the right resources, shifting your objectives can really provide you an opportunity to do things better, be clearer, and focus better. In this case, checklists are helpful.
In this post, we’ll show you how to use checklists so that you can quickly adapt your plans when your priorities change without losing sight of the big picture.
How often do priorities change?
Before we go into the specifics of how to do things, let’s talk about why priorities change in the first place. It is easier to behave on purpose instead of in a hurry when you know why.
- Market forces: A new competitor brings out a product that shakes things up. Your team has to alter direction all of a sudden to fill a feature gap or modify the way you talk about things.
- Customer feedback: Your users start to complain about an important part of the experience or, even worse, ask for a feature that you hadn’t planned to provide.
- Limited resources: If your designer goes on parental leave or you lose a contractor unexpectedly, your bandwidth may go down.
- Changes in leadership: If a new CEO puts making money ahead of growth, the roadmap will need to be changed a lot.
- Internal discoveries: An A/B test may show you that your assumptions about how users behave were wrong, and you need to adjust your plans right now.
These are not signs of failure; they are real-life circumstances. The companies that do well are the ones that can quickly and easily readjust. That’s when using checklists strategically could be helpful.
Step 1: Use checklists to find out what your current priorities are
When things are changing, it’s hard to deal with things that are clear. No one knows what to do next all of a sudden. In this case, a “priority audit” checklist can be helpful.
A list to help you choose your priorities:
- What are the three most important goals for our business right now? Look over your KPIs or OKRs again. If your goals haven’t changed, you might not need to adjust the order of your projects.
- Has anything happened that has a direct impact on those goals? This could be a change in the company’s ability, something that happens in the market, or feedback from an important client.
- Which projects fit with the new direction? Mark the initiatives that are most important to you.
- Which initiatives are no longer important or relevant? Look for tasks that aren’t helping you reach your present goals but were useful in the past.
- Is there a clear owner for each project that is still going on? When priorities shift, it might be hard to know what your responsibilities are. Check again to see who owns what.
For example, a SaaS company changes its focus from adding new services to keeping clients. The product team stops adding to the roadmap to work on improving the onboarding process and the user experience.
Step 2: Make a list of things to do based on how they will affect you
Your feelings and assumptions could affect whether you decide to go ahead with a project, put it off, or change your mind. A simple impact checklist can help you make decisions that are founded on facts and fit with your overall strategy.
This guide on how to create working checklists by taking you through several useful steps. These steps will help you figure out what should be on your checklist so that it covers all the necessary tasks without being too complicated.
A list of things to think about when deciding how important a project is:
- Does this initiative directly help us reach our new goals? If not, it might have to wait a bit.
- What is the expected return on investment, and is that still true? Look at the most recent data or standards. Check again to see if the ROI is based on assumptions that are no longer true.
- Is it possible for the team to finish it with their current resources? To put even the best ideas into action, you need resources. If you don’t have enough bandwidth, stack-rank against other projects.
- Are we emotionally taking into consideration costs that have already been spent? You don’t have to finish anything just because you spent time or money on it.
- What would happen if you didn’t do this right now? Could you miss a launch window, lose a big client, or fall behind your competitors?
For example, a marketing team talks about whether or not to start a rebranding effort. They put off branding and focus more on conversion optimization because they can’t release new products and their revenue flow is limited.
Step 3: Realign your teams using focus checklists
After you have looked over your priorities and essential projects again, it’s time to rearrange the team. The sooner everyone understands the change and what it means for their jobs, the less confusion and churn there will be.
Team Realignment Checklist:
- Have all the teams been told clearly about the change? Tell everyone that the leadership, not the gossip mill, is in charge.
- Do you write down your new goals or OKRs? Everyone is on the same page when shared papers are updated.
- Do people aware that their jobs have changed? Talk about the changes in one-on-one meetings with those who report to you.
- Have you gone through your to-do lists and gotten rid of things that aren’t necessary or are too old? Close or archive tasks in your project management program that you don’t require anymore.
Is the project management tool now compatible with the new course? Things will continue confusing if the roadmap in Jira, Notion, or Asana doesn’t represent the changing focus.
For instance, the product team puts less important activities to a backlog column and makes a new board for trials with user onboarding after focusing on keeping users.
Step 4: Make checklists into processes that help you improve all the time
One of the best things about using checklists to change your priorities is that they help you develop processes that work again and over again. You’re not just reacting to change; you’re learning how to deal with it better.
This guide on dynamic checklists speaks about how to handle checklists that are supposed to vary as your priorities do.
To make it last, do these things:
Make sure your checklists are in a format that can be changed and shared: Use apps like Google Sheets, Trello, or Notion to make it easy for your team to find and change them.
Give someone the job: A team or point person should be in charge of each checklist. For example, operations is in charge of the team alignment checklist.
Include them in the onboarding process: New employees need to know how your organization handles change and what to expect.
Look over these things when you plan for the quarter: Update your checklists as part of your strategic review process.
For example, a fast-growing startup adds its priority review checklist to its all-hands PowerPoint deck every three months. Everyone knows what is expected of them and how fast they should work.
This approach slowly turns disorder into order. And the more you work that muscle, the stronger your business will get.
In Short
Things will change, and priorities will shift. How you deal with them will decide your success. Checklists won’t stop changes from happening, but they will help you respond with confidence, concentration, and coordination. They help everyone stay on the same page, cut down on misunderstandings, and provide stability when things are uncertain. So, if your roadmap flips over again, don’t freak out. Just grab your checklist.
