This guide will highlight the Best To-Do List Apps for personal task management in 2020. Each new day, a list of tasks awaits us. Some of them are more interesting than others. Nevertheless, the importance of completing these tasks is undisputed, especially if they build on a daily basis. I will dedicate 2 or 3 25-minute periods to one of my tasks, depending on how much time I need. It makes focusing and managing time too easy. Share them with someone. No matter who you are, accountability is hard. It’s easy to let yourself slide, and not get a few simple things done.
Let’s face it, Task Management is a core part of any project or day at work for that matter. Every day we have new tasks that come up, get completed or re-assigned to others. In fact, tasks are such a staple of our work, that over the course of my career, I have seen people use any available medium to manage them. From hand-written notes to Excel, Outlook, MS Project or some online “To-Do” type applications. If your organization is using SharePoint, there is a pretty robust task management capability built in. In this blog post I would like to describe 3 ways you can manage tasks in SharePoint. Your choice will be based on personal preference and comfort with technology. Did I mention that this topic is quite dear to my heart since I spent 15 years in Project Management?
Option 1: Manage Tasks in SharePoint using Tasks web part
If you are looking for simple, out of the box, web-based task management, there is already a cool web part available to you that you can use. It is called Tasks. It has been part of SharePoint for a while but in SharePoint 2013 (SharePoint Online/Office 365) it got a major face-lift and technical improvements, like an ability to display tasks on a timeline. The web part can be used right out of the box. You, of course, can customize it with metadata if you wish. For every new task created, you need to fill in the out of the box metadata like task status, priority, start and due dates, etc.
While at the core – it is just like another list in SharePoint with rows and columns containing content and metadata, it also has some specific task management “smart” functionality. For example:
By marking Task Status to Completed, it changes % Complete to 100%. And vice versa, by changing % Complete to 100%, it changes Task Status to Completed. So it works just like in MS Project.
You can configure the task list to send an email to the individual(s) in the Assigned To column. You can alter that setting in the Advanced Settings of the Tasks Web Part
You can create subtasks, just like in MS Project
And the absolute beauty is the timeline. Sometimes task lists can get pretty complicated and hard for end users to visualize. To help with that, you can add tasks to the timeline that is prominently displayed just above the task list. NOTE: To be able to add tasks to the timeline, user needs to have Edit or above permission level. Users with Contribute permission level will not be able to add tasks to Timeline
How to add Tasks Web Part to SharePoint
To create a Web Part go to Site Contents > Add an App > Tasks Web Part (you need to have Admin privileges to do this)
Give it a name, click OK
To insert a newly created Task List to the Site homepage, click on Page > Edit > Insert Tab > Web Part > Name of Task List you created. Then click Add (on the right side of the screen). Click Save (to save the page)
Pros
Web-based interface, no need to need for special software
Simple to setup and use
Ability to send email notifications when tasks are assigned
Not as robust in terms of functionality as MS Project
Option 2: Manage Tasks in SharePoint using Tasks web part and MS Project
If you are into more serious project management, and SharePoint Tasks web part is not enough, you can use SharePoint Task List in conjunction with the MS Project. You can either open the Task List using MS Project software or synchronize an existing MS Project Schedule with Tasks web part.
How to manage SharePoint Tasks with MS Project
I actually recently published a separate, pretty detailed blog post on how to sync SharePoint Task List and MS Project.Click here to access it
Such a combination allows Project Managers to benefit from advanced functionality of MS Project, such as resource and schedule management, and at the same time allows your team members to access the tasks via web-based, clean user interface (SharePoint Task List).
Pros
All of the Pros from Option 1 +
Ability to combine flexibility of MS Project with simplicity of SharePoint Task List
Cons
Before using this method, need to decide proper approach and security/permissions on who controls the schedule (Project Manager via MS Project or regular team members via SharePoint Task List). Please see this blog post for additional information and instruction on the topic
Option 3: Manage Tasks in SharePoint using Outlook
Another cool way to manage SharePoint tasks is by managing them from your Outlook email client. A while back I published a detailed blog post on how to connect SharePoint with Outlook. Usually most users use this feature to sync SharePoint calendars with Outlook calendars. However, as indicated in that same blog post, you can also connect other SharePoint lists, like Tasks, Contacts and even a Discussion Board. Since today we are talking about Tasks, let me explain how to connect SharePoint Task list to Outlook and manage SharePoint tasks from within Outlook.
How to connect SharePoint Task List to Outlook:
Go to the root of your Task List, List Tab > Connect to Outlook
You will get a prompt, asking you to confirm the connection to Outlook. Click Yes
Your desktop Outlook application will now open and tasks will synchronize to your Outlook
How to manage SharePoint Tasks from Outlook
Synchronized tasks will appear in the same window as your regular Outlook tasks. They will not be mixed up with your personal tasks. Instead, they will be in the “folder” that will contain the name of the SharePoint site you synchronized them from. Once in Outlook, click on that folder on the left hand-side.
Working with synchronized SharePoint tasks is exactly the same as with “regular” tasks. Just double click the task, make necessary changes and hit Save & Close. The changes will instantly be transmitted back (syncrhonized) to SharePoint Task List
Pros
All of the Pros from Option 1 +
Ability to work on tasks without leaving mailbox
Cons
Just like with SharePoint-Outlook Calendar sync, it will synchronize the whole task list. So if your Task List contains hundreds of tasks, all of them will be synchronized to your Outlook, which might make it messy for you to navigate through
For whatever reason (might be a bug), if task item is assigned to multiple people in SharePoint Task List, it only shows as assigned to 1 person – whoever appears first in the Assigned To field – this might mislead the users.
All synchronized SharePoint Tasks appear as a single list of tasks in Outlook. In other words, if you had subtasks (indented tasks) in SharePoint, in Outlook they would look like a regular list of independent tasks. Also, the order of tasks in Outlook might be different from that in SharePoint. So syncing tasks to Outlook might not make sense when you have long and complicated schedules. See below images which capture same task list in SharePoint and Outlook and you will understand what I mean
PART II: THE FIVE TASKS OF STRATEGIC
MANAGEMENT
The strategy-making, strategy-implementing process consists of five inter-
related managerial tasks:
1. Deciding what business the company will be in and forming a strategic vision
of where the organization needs to be headed - in effect, setting the
organization with a sense of purpose, providing long-term direction, and
establishing a clear mission to be achieved.
2. Converting the strategic vision and mission into measurable objectives and
performance targets.
3. Crafting a strategy to achieve the desired results.
4. Implementing and executing the chosen strategy efficiently and effectively.
5. Evaluating performance, reviewing new developments, and initiating corrective
adjustments in long-term direction, objectives, strategy, or implementation in
the light of actual experience, changing conditions, new ideas, and new
opportunities.
Figure 1-1 illustrates this process. Together, these five components define what
I mean by the term strategic management. Let's explore this framework in more
detail to set the stage for all that follows.
1. Developing a Strategic Vision and Business Mission
The foremost direction-the very first question that senior managers need to ask
is 'What is our vision for the company—what are we trying to do and to become?
' Developing a carefully reasoned answer to this question pushes managers to
consider what the company's business character is and should be and to develop a
clear picture of where the company needs to be headed over the next 5 to 10
years. Management's answer to 'who we are, what we do, and where we're headed'
shapes a course for the organization to take and helps establish a strong
organizational identity. What a company seeks to do and to become is commonly
termed the company's mission. A mission statement defines a company's
business and provides a clear view of what the company is trying to
accomplish for its customers. But managers also have to think strategically
about where they are trying to take the company. Management's concept of the
business needs to be supplemented with a concept of the company's future
business characteristic and long-term direction. Management's view of the kind
of company it is trying to create and its intent to be in a particular business
position represent a strategic vision for the company. By developing and
communicating a business mission and strategic vision, management educate the
workforce with a sense of purpose and a persuasive reasons for the company's
future direction. Here are some examples of company mission and vision
statements:
Examples of Company Mission and Vision Statements
Avis Rent-a-Car:
'Our business is renting cars. Our mission is total customer satisfaction.'
Public Service Company of New Mexico:
'Our mission is to work for the success of people we serve by providing our
customers reliable electric service, energy information, and energy options that
best satisfy their needs.'
American Red Cross:
'The mission of the American Red Cross is to improve the quality of human
life; to enhance self-reliance and concern for others; and to help people avoid,
prepare for, and cope with emergencies.'
Compaq Computer:
'To be the leading supplier of PCs and PC servers in all customer segments.'
2. Setting Objectives
The purpose of setting objectives is to convert managerial statements of business
mission and company direction into specific performance targets, something the
organization's progress can be measured by. Objective-setting implies challenge,
establishing performance targets that require stretch and disciplined effort. The
challenge of trying to close the gap between actual and desired performance
pushes an organization to be more inventive, to exhibit some urgency in
improving both its financial performance and its business position, and to be
more intentional and focused on its actions. Setting objectives that are
challenging but achievable can help guard against self-satisfied, non-directed and
internal confusion over what to accomplish. As Mitchell Leibovitz, CEO of Pep
Boys—Manny, Moe, and Jack, puts it, 'If you want to have ho-hum results, have
ho-hum objectives.'
The objectives managers establish should ideally include both short-term and
long-term performance targets. Short-term objectives spell out the immediate
improvements and outcomes management desires. Long-term objectives prompt
managers to now to position the company to perform well over the longer term.
As a rule, when alternative have to be made between achieving long-run
objectives and achieving short-run objectives, long-run objectives should take the
priority. Rarely does a company prosper from repeated management actions that
sacrifice better long-run performance for better short-term performance.
Objective-setting is required of all managers. Every unit in a company needs
concrete, measurable performance targets that contribute meaningfully toward
achieving company objectives. When company's general objectives are broken
down into specific targets for each organizational unit and lower-level managers
are responsible for achieving them, a results-oriented climate builds throughout
the enterprise. The ideal situation is a team effort where each organizational unit
is striving hard to produce results in its area of responsibility that will help the
company reach its performance targets and achieve its strategic vision.
From company general objectives, two types of performance objectives are
called for: financial objectives and strategic objectives. Financial objectives are
important because without acceptable financial performance an organization risks
being denied the resources it needs to grow and prosper. Strategic objectives are
needed to prompt managerial efforts to strengthen a company's overall business
and competitive position. Financial objectives typically relate to such measures
as earnings growth, return on investment, borrowing power, cash flow, and
shareholder returns. Strategic objectives, however, concern a company's
competitiveness and long-term business position in its markets: growing faster
than the industry average, overtaking key competitors on product quality or
customer service or market share, achieving lower overall costs than rivals,
boosting the company's reputation with customers, winning a stronger foothold
in international markets, exercising technological leadership, gaining a
sustainable competitive advantage, and capturing attractive growth opportunities.
Strategic objectives serve notice that management not only intends to deliver
good financial performance but also to improve the organization's competitive
strength and long-range business prospects. And here are examples of strategic
and financial objectives
Strategic and Financial Objectives of Well-Known Corporations
Apple Computer
'To offer the best possible personal computer technology, and to put that
technology in the hands of as many people as possible.'
Atlas Corporation
'To become a low-cost, medium-size gold producer, producing in excess of
125,000 ounces of gold a year and building gold reserves of 1,500,000 ounces.'
Exxon
To provide shareholders a secure investment with a superior return.'
3. Crafting a Strategy
Strategy-making brings into play the critical managerial issue of how to achieve
the targeted results in light of the organization's situation and prospects.
Objectives are the 'ends,' and strategy is the 'means' of achieving them. In effect,
strategy is the pattern of actions managers employ to achieve strategic and
financial performance targets. The task of crafting a strategy starts with solid
analyses of the company's internal and external situation. Only when armed
with hard analysis of the big picture are managers prepared to make a sound
strategy to achieve targeted strategic and financial results. Why?- Because
misanalysis of the situation greatly raises the risk of pursuing ill-awarded
strategic actions.
A company's strategy is typically a combination of (1) deliberate and purposeful
actions and (2) as-needed reactions to unanticipated developments and fresh
competitive pressures. As illustrated in Figure 1-2, strategy is more than what
managers have carefully set it out in advance and intend to do as part of some
important strategic plan. New circumstances always emerge, whether important
technological developments, rivals' successful new product introductions, newly
enacted government regulations and policies, widening consumer interest in
different kinds of performance features, or whatever. There's always enough
uncertainty about the future that managers cannot plan every strategic action in
advance and pursue their intended strategy without alteration. Company strategies
end up, therefore, being a composite of planned actions (intended strategy) and
as-needed reactions to unforeseen conditions ('unplanned' strategy responses).
Consequently, strategy is best considered as a combination of planned actions
and on-the-spot adaptive reactions to fresh developing industry and competitive
events. The strategy-making task involves developing a game plan, or intended
strategy, and then adapting it as events occur. A company's actual strategy is
something managers must craft as events arise outside and inside the company. Oxygen xml editor 21 03.
3.1. Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Crafting strategy is an exercise in entrepreneurship and outside-in strategic
thinking. The challenge is for company managers to keep their strategies closely
matched to such outside drivers as changing buyer preferences, the latest actions
of rivals, market opportunities and threats, and newly appearing business
conditions. Company strategies can't be responsive to changes in the business
environment unless managers exhibit entrepreneurship in studying market trends,
listening to customers, enhancing the company's competitiveness, and leading
company activities in new directions in a timely manner. Good strategy-making
is therefore inseparable from good business entrepreneurship. One cannot
exist without the other.
A company encounters two dangers when its managers fail to exercise strategy-
making entrepreneurship. One is a stale strategy. The faster a company's
business environment is changing, the more critical it becomes for its managers
to be good entrepreneurs in diagnosing shifting conditions and making strategic
adjustments. Coasting along with a set strategy tends to be riskier than making
modifications. Strategies that are increasingly not linked with market realities
make a company a good candidate for a performance crisis.
The second danger is inside-oriented strategic thinking. Managers with weak
entrepreneurial skills are usually risk-avoiding and hesitant to carry out a new
strategic course so long as the present strategy produces acceptable results.
They pay only neglectful attention to market trends and listen to customers
infrequently. Often, they either dismiss new outside developments as
unimportant ('we don't think it will really affect us') or else study them to death
before taking actions. Being comfortable with the present strategy, they focus
their energy and attention inward on internal problem-solving, organizational
processes and procedures, reports and deadlines, company politics, and the
administrative demands of their jobs. Consequently the strategic actions they
initiate tend to be inside-out and governed by the company's traditional
approaches, what is acceptable to various internal political coalitions, what is
philosophically comfortable, and what is safe, both organizationally and career
wise. Inside-out strategies, while not disconnected from industry and competitive
conditions, stop short of being market-driven and customer-driven. Rather,
outside considerations end up being compromised to harmonize internal
considerations. The weaker a manager's entrepreneurial instincts and capabilities,
the greater a manager's trend to engage in inside-out strategizing, an outcome that
raises the potential for reduced competitiveness and weakened organizational
commitment to total customer satisfaction.
How boldly managers embrace new strategic opportunities, how much they
emphasize out-innovating the competition, and how often they lead actions to
improve organizational performance are good standard of their entrepreneurial
spirit. Entrepreneurial strategy-makers are inclined to be first-movers,
responding quickly and opportunistically to new developments. They are willing
to take prudent risks and initiate trailblazing strategies. In contrast, reluctant
entrepreneurs are risk-averse; they tend to be late-movers, hopeful about their
chances of soon catching up and alert to how they can avoid whatever 'mistakes'
they believe first-movers have made.
In strategy-making, all managers, not just senior executives, must take prudent
risks and exercise entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is involved when a district
customer service manager, as part of a company's commitment to better
customer service, crafts a strategy to speed the response time on service calls by
25 percent and commits $15,000 to equip all service trucks with mobile
telephones. Entrepreneurship is involved when a warehousing manager
contributes to a company's strategic emphasis on total quality by figuring out
how to reduce the error frequency on filling customer orders from one error
every 100 orders to one error every 100,000. A sales manager exercises
strategic entrepreneurship by deciding to run a special promotion and cut sales
prices by 5 percent to get market share from rivals. A manufacturing manager
exercises strategic entrepreneurship in deciding, as part of a companywide
emphasis on greater cost competitiveness, to source an important component
from a lower-priced South Korean supplier instead of making it in-house.
Company strategies can't be truly market - and customer-driven unless the
strategy-related activities of managers all across the company have an outside-
oriented entrepreneurial character and contribute to boosting customer
satisfaction and achieving sustainable competitive advantage.
3.2. Why Company Strategies Evolve
Frequent fine-tuning and adjusting of a company's strategy, first in one
department or functional area and then in another, are quite normal. On occasion,
fundamental changes in strategy are called for—when a competitor makes a
dramatic move, when technological breakthroughs occur, or when crisis strikes
and managers are forced to make radical strategy alterations very quickly.
Because strategic moves and new action approaches are ongoing across the
business, an organization's strategy forms over a period of time and then reforms
as the number of changes begins. Current strategy is typically a combination of
previous approaches, fresh actions and reactions, and potential moves in the
planning stage. Except for crisis situations (where many strategic moves are
often made quickly to produce a substantially new strategy almost overnight) and
new company start-ups (where strategy exists mostly in the form of plans and
intended actions), it is common for key elements of a company's strategy to
emerge in bits and pieces as the business develops.
Rarely is a company's strategy so well-conceived and durable that it can withstand
the test of time. Even the best-laid business plans must be adapted to shifting
market conditions, altered customer needs and preferences, the strategic
maneuvering of rival firms, the experience of what is working and what isn't,
emerging opportunities and threats, unforeseen events, and fresh thinking about
how to improve the strategy. This is why strategy-making is a dynamic process
and why a manager must reevaluate strategy regularly, refining and recasting it as
needed.
However, when strategy changes so fast and so fundamentally that the game plan
undergoes major amendment every few months, managers are almost certainly
guilty of poor strategic analysis, bad decision-making, and weak 'strategizing'.
Important changes in strategy are needed occasionally, especially in crisis
situations, but they cannot be made too often without creating organizational
confusion and disrupting performance. Well-crafted strategies normally have a
life of at least several years, requiring only minor adjustment to keep them in
tune with changing circumstances.
3.3. What Does a Company's Strategy Consist Of?
Company strategies concern how: how to grow the business, how to satisfy
customers, how to out-compete rivals, how to respond to changing market
conditions, how to manage each functional piece of the business, how to achieve
strategic and financial objectives. The how of strategy tend to be company-
specific, customized to a company's own situation and performance objectives.
In the business world, companies have a wide degree of strategic freedom. They
can diversify broadly or narrowly, into related or unrelated industries, via
acquisition, joint venture, strategic alliances, or internal start-up. Even when a
company elects to concentrate on a single business, current market conditions
usually offer enough strategy-making room that close competitors can easily
