Urgent requests from Sales for competitive information.Īs an on-going process, define and maintain the Competitive Landscape that identifies competitive and alternative offerings.Ĭommunicating to cross-functional teams and upper managements on project status. Produce standard product Presentation and Demo scripts that can be used by sales team in a typical sales process. If you are spending too much time doing these… The Quadrant II activities in the right column identify the strategic activities that will help the Product Manager spend more time in the second quadrant. So how does the Product Manager keep his time in Quadrant I to a minimum and maximize his time in Quadrant II? In the table below, the Quadrant I activities on the left column list a number of activities that expose a risk to the Product Managers time. These are the strategic activities that will ultimately define the success of the Product. Quadrant II is where Product Managers need to maximize their time. Quadrant I activities are necessary to the job - the key is to manage the time spent in this quadrant, otherwise it can consume you and the Product Manager becomes an all-encompassing crisis manager for the product. What I have done here is to take Covey's Time Management Matrix and applied it to common product management activities as the matrix here shows: Herein lays the issue for Product Managers who desperately need to work on strategic activities but are very often yanked and pulled in other “urgent” directions. We react to urgent matters while we tend to plan important activities. Importance has to do with results - if something is important, then it contributes to one's strategic goals or mission. Urgent activities are self-explanatory they require immediate attention. The two factors that define an activity are urgency and importance. It involves a matrix composed of four quadrants that define how we spend our time: Without doing so, I have found that it is too easy to get consumed by non-important tasks.Ĭovey first introduced his time management matrix in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I have relied on a prioritization matrix developed by Stephen Covey to ensure I focus my attention on those activities that contribute towards my strategic goals. This way, you can re-evaluate how you spend your time and if your tasks need to be re-organized.Product Managers are faced with a constant struggle to manage their time effectively. At the end of the week, combine the individual day data onto one summary grid and calculate the % of time spent in each grid. You can start by creating 2-4 copies of the grid and use it every day listing all activities and time spent.
![stephen covey time management matrix template stephen covey time management matrix template](https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/time-management-sm-3.jpg)
![stephen covey time management matrix template stephen covey time management matrix template](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57338a0e2fe1312482379195/1485791609237-SRR2U6TPSZC25MSBR85Z/image-asset.jpeg)
STEPHEN COVEY TIME MANAGEMENT MATRIX TEMPLATE FREE
Then, assess the amount of time you have to accomplish the tasks (feel free to reallocate the activities according to your job role).Īnother application could be using the grid to assess your personal/current strategies. The grid has several applications, use it however you want! The 1st and most obvious one though is to take your current ‘to-do’ list and sort all the activities into the appropriate grid. PS: This post may seem too cliché or ‘obvious’, but try implementing it for a week and you’ll notice a drastic change in your overall performance!Īs you can see from the grid below, there are 4 quadrants organized by urgency and importance.
![stephen covey time management matrix template stephen covey time management matrix template](https://www.minimalistleadercoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/image.png)
In a time where missing deadlines is not an option, the Covey Time Management grid, helps you prioritize tasks in relation to their importance and urgency, helping you to decide whether you need to address a task immediately or if you can postpone it ? My professor introduced me to do this when I was doing my Masters in Engineering and it has helped me prioritise my work efficiently ever since (especially if I have questions like, is this task important? can it wait? is it a priority?) ? “‘Time Management’ is the only thing that separates highly productive people from the lazy ones!”