Whether you follow agile or waterfall methodology, whether it is a project or an operational process, and whether your project or operation is large or small, each activity must have a start date and an end date. Even if it is a low priority activity.
Unfortunately, in many situations, low priority activities simply fall apart due to a missing deadline and a lack of motivation to have them completed.
Assigning low priority to a task in a highly dynamic organization almost guarantees that it will never get traction. There will always be something more important and more rewarding to accomplish. However, if a certain activity is a low priority, this does not always mean that it should never be addressed.
In many cases, lower priorities get assigned for a good reason. Product owners in agile teams or project sponsors and other managers in traditional organizations consider the immediate business needs and prioritize projects and operational activities accordingly.
What they forget sometimes is to re-prioritize. The tricky part about re-prioritizing is that without starting the work on a certain activity, one may not reveal its importance.
Here is a good example:
A project manager in one of my previous organizations asked a network guru to explore the option of using WiFi for a future business process. The request was not accompanied by any deadline, and the guru was loaded with numerous production-related matters that required immediate attention. The project was supposed to start in a few months, so there was no rush. The project manager was checking on their request from time to time without too many expectations. A few months passed and the project started – since the WiFi research was not complete, and the team had to move forward, they decided not to use WiFi for their solution (at least for the first phase). A few months into the project, using alternative connection methods had proven to be cost-inefficient and less stable for a number of reasons. They had to trigger the network guru once again, and this time it was an urgent task. The WiFi approach was successfully tested and implemented, but a lot of “high priority” time was lost.
The moral of the story is: if you put something that you consider insignificant on the “bottom shelf” of your closet, check that shelf from time to time. Priorities change, and that change is not always easy to spot.
Also, always have the following dates on your plan: task completion dates for the work in progress and dates to revisit the parked items for those “on hold” activities.
Another challenge with low-priority activities is that people tend to be less motivated to have them completed. While deadlines could cause stress, on the reverse side, they challenge people, and hence they cause motivation to finish the task on time and to get recognized, appreciated, acknowledged, or even rewarded. Having no deadline kills the motivation unless the task itself is highly attractive in nature.
Always associate your project activities with dates. You can re-prioritize and change the dates if needed, but at each particular moment, every activity on your project plan must have a specific date related to its start and completion. This way, your team members will give their tasks more attention and consideration.