Pro Tip: Categorizing to-do lists may assist bakery leadership in establishing priorities.

Bakery leadership is constantly inundated with requests, demands and the wishes of those who lead companies at the executive level. The nature of these asks is at times unclear, and the priorities are rarely communicated and oftentimes misunderstood. In addition, bakery leaders have their own issues to deal with regarding people, processes and products, which only adds to the overall workload.

The lists that form become long and cumbersome, and rather than encouraging work to get done, these lists can cause people to mentally lock up and ultimately accomplish nothing. Bakery leadership must realize that to get work completed, priorities need to be set. Leaders must also understand that nobody is going to set priorities for them. Leadership is hired and expected to take responsibility for conducting the work.

There are many ways to prioritize the work to be done. You can set the order of work by what will make the most impact on the business. It may be to start with what is easiest so the list gets smaller, or you can prioritize where workplace and food safety become the highest priorities.

One way to work through all that must be completed is to use an affinity diagram process. I like to use the term Prioritizing for Priorities as a nice buzz phrase that people can get their heads around. You can find all sorts of instructions about this on the internet, but here are the cliffs notes for this tool that can help you prioritize.

This process uses a visual tool that helps organize information (requests in this case) and forces the categorization of areas of the business and ordered by the level of importance. This process also allows for open discussion with others to understand the task.

Lists on spreadsheets or legal pads are difficult to sort. To make this process happen fast and easy, it is best to get several colored sticky notes to work with. Write down each request, task or wish on its own sticky note. Once that’s done, stick it to the wall or whiteboard. Then select five or six general categories to which you might sort. I like to use People (safety & training), Process (SOPs & work instruction), Product (quality & food safety), Performance (efficiency, downtime & yield) and Place (facility & maintenance), for example.

With the major categories chosen and labeled on the same wall, discuss each idea from the individual sticky notes and then determine which major categories they fall under and then move them there. Once done, go category by category and prioritize the items under each banner. When you are finished, you will have five top priorities. At that point you can determine if you have the ability to tackle all five, or you need to decide from those five how they will be completed and in what order.

The great benefit of this process is that you can leave it up and add to it as you go. You can bring stakeholders in to discuss your prioritizations and juggle them along the way. When information is visible, it is valuable.

Jeff Dearduff is owner of JED Manufacturing Services who provides “Bakery Guy Tips” to those everyday people working in production, maintenance and engineering. Connect with him on LinkedIn.