To do list - template & use cases

To do list – template & use cases
19/04/2017
consultorama.101@gmail.com – all rights
reserved
1

To do list| flash card
19/04/2017
reserved
2
Objective
Structured list of tasks to be performed in
the near future, with prioritization and
progress status information.
Standard agenda
▪ Task description
▪ Ownership*
▪ Criticality
▪ Deadline
▪ Status
▪ Comment
*if shared with team or client
Use cases
▪ ‘individually’ : used to ensure you do
not forget to do anything important
▪ ‘collectively’: used to share tasks and
progress within team &/or with client
Implementation guidance
▪ Must present tasks in a very clear,
specific but synthetic way
▪ Systematically allocate ownership
▪ Must be easy to read, preferably with
colours or icons
Tools
▪ MS PPT, MS XL, MS Notes
▪ Gmail, MS Outlook …
▪ Apps (todoist for ex.)
Templates
▪ See following slides

3 ground principles you should respect when designing and updating a to do list
19/04/2017
reserved
3
It should only take you
a few minutes per day
to update
Use numbers and
accurate terms to
describe your tasks
Any member of your
team should be able to
understand and take
over your tasks
Easy to do Easy to read Specific
31
2

There are different solutions to design and update a to do list …
19/04/2017
reserved
4
Design your own to do
list
Use to do list templates
Use your e-mail task
management
functionalities
Use a dedicated
app
To do list

… each of them presenting specific advantages
19/04/2017
reserved
5
Scalable Collaborative Easy to use Automated
Design your own
Use e-mail
Use templates
Use a apps
Low Average High
and the winner is ….
If you design your own
to do list, you can add
& remove as many
columns as you want,
depending on your
needs
E-mail & dedicated apps
have been natively
designed to encourage
collaborative work
Apps and templates are
very easy to use – UX
strongly varies from
one e-mail software to
another
E-mail & dedicated apps
have very useful
features such as
alerting,
interconnection with
agenda & e-mails

To do list – a basic MS XL version
Part 1: Nature
Part 2: Priorities
Part 3: Progress status
19/04/2017
reserved
6
# Category Task description Owner Criticality Deadline Status Comment
A001 Category 2 Owner 6 2 Not started
A002 Category 1 Owner 4 3 In progress
A003 Category 1 Owner 4 1 In progress
What are we trying to achieve?
What should be
done first?
Where are we standing?
Criticality Deadline

# Category Task description Owner
A001 Category 2 Owner 6
To do list – Part 1: the objective is to determine what needs to be achieved
1
2
3
The ‘#’ column is used to allocate a series
number to each task in your list. It makes
navigation and exhaustiveness controls easier.
You can couple ‘#’ with the category column (for
instance, all tasks in Category A have a AXXX
series number)
The ‘Category’ column is useful when you need to
track the nature of the tasks you perform :
▪ You work on several work-streams or
assignments in parallel
▪ You cover a wide task spectrum
Apply the ‘MECE’ principle
The ‘Task description’ column is used to … describe the
task, following some simple rules:
▪ Be specific and synthetic
▪ Start description with an action verb
▪ Avoid grouping tasks together (even if they are
connected to oneanother, they may have specific
deadlines)
19/04/2017
reserved
7
4
The ‘owner’ column is used to identify who is
responsible / accountable for each task. Use it when
you need to share your to do list with your team or
client.
Task ownership is critical as it is a sine qua non
condition for having someone starting to work on the
task.
You can use either full name or initials to identify
ownership.

To do list | some columns you may want to add to part 1
19/04/2017
reserved
8
Sub-category Deliverable Team
2
3
To be used when you need to present the
deliverable (name &/or nature) that will be
produced as an output of the task
To be used when you need to analyse
the tasks through organizational
lenses; you can add team,
department, company … column(s)1
To be used when you need to analyse the
tasks through different lenses (you can add
several ‘sub-category’ columns)

To do list | Part 2 aims at identifying what should be done first
19/04/2017
reserved
9
The ‘Criticality’ column is used to measure the importance of all the tasks in the list.
You can use a 3 value scale (high – medium – low) to qualify all tasks in the list
keeping in mind that in general, you should have a majority of ‘medium’ items and
limited numbers of high and lows.
Criticality Deadline
1
2
The ‘Deadline’ column is used to identify urgent matters, i.e.
with close due date.
It is critical to allocate an explicit deadline to all tasks in the
list (ASAP is to be avoided).
Precise whether deadlines you display in this column are
initial deadlines, revised deadlines, actual deadlines.

Criticality & deadlines can be used to fill-in an Eisenhower matrix
19/04/2017
reserved
10
Ui UI
ui uI
U: urgent -> close deadline
Tasks that need to be done quickly to respect a commitment
u: not urgent -> far deadline
Tasks that have no time constraint (at least not in the immediate)
I: important -> high criticality
Tasks with a big impact (positive if done or negative if missed)
i: not important -> low criticality
Tasks with no or limited impact (either positive or negative )

19/04/2017
reserved
11
Priority level Dependency Order
2
To be used when you need to connect tasks with one another:
▪ Upwards dependency: tasks that need to be performed before
▪ Downwards dependency: tasks that need to be performed after
Tracking down dependencies is easier when you have allocated a number to all tasks
3 To be used to order tasks
1
Priority level is a combination of importance and urgency.
You can use a 3 degree system with:
P1: high priority tasks, corresponding to UI category in the Eisenhower matrix
P2: average priority tasks, corresponding to uI and Ui categories
P3: low priority tasks, corresponding to ui categories

19/04/2017
reserved
12
Creation date Initial deadline Actual deadline
5
To be used if you monitor the discrepancy between
initial deadline and actual deadline
4
To be used if you want to keep track of the lag
between creation and completion, or simply
have some chronology elements

ticality Owner Deadline Status Comment
Owner 6 Not started
Owner 4 In progress
Owner 4 In progress
Low
Medium
High
To do list | Part 3 aims at defining where you are presently standing
1
2
The ‘Comment’ column is used to give additional
information on progress, threats, overdues …
The ‘Status’ column is used to determine if tasks are
performed following the right path and at the right
speed.
You can use a 4 value system:
19/04/2017
reserved
13
Done
Not started
In Progress
On hold

19/04/2017
reserved
14
Overdues Threats
2
Used to highlight future overdues by explaining the
nature / cause / consequences of potential threats
1
Used to clearly highlight overdues (and subsequently re-
prioritise your work or take any other remediation action).
You can use a formula based on deadline, report date and
status, in order to identify overdues.
Overdues

Some tips when designing a to do list with MS Excel
19/04/2017 15
Use scrolling lists for fields that
need to be filled in with
homogeneous data (status,
criticality, category, owner mainly)
Use conditional formatting for fields with
visual content (status, criticality for
example)
Use formulas to calculate
‘advanced’ fields such as
overdues
reserved

To do list - template & use cases

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to To do list - template & use cases

Similar to To do list - template & use cases (14)

More from Sophie Consultorama

More from Sophie Consultorama (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

To do list - template & use cases