=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2543/spaper11
|storemode=property
|title=Using the Labels of Priorities, Specifications, and Affiliations when Working in Task Management Programs
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2543/spaper11.pdf
|volume=Vol-2543
|authors=Felix Kasparinsky
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ssi/Kasparinsky19b
}}
==Using the Labels of Priorities, Specifications, and Affiliations when Working in Task Management Programs==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2543/spaper11.pdf
Using the Labels of Priorities, Specifications,
and Affiliations when Working in Task Management
Programs
Felix Kasparinsky[0000-0002-1048-9212]
MASTER-MULTIMEDIA Ltd, Entuziastov Shosse 98-3-274, Moscow 111531, Russia
felix@kasparinsky.pro
Abstract. The article analyzes the specifics of the functional programs for
managing strategic, tactical and operational tasks. A technique for prefixing op-
erational task names with tactical labels of Priorities, Specifications and Affilia-
tions is proposed. Label abbreviations are formed in such a way as to ensure the
correct prioritization when sorting tasks in alphabetical order. The quadrants of
the D.Eisenhower Priorities matrix are indicated by two-letter marks: important
urgently (IF - Important, Fast); important indefinitely (IS - Important, Slow);
not important, but promptly (UF - Unimportant, Fast): neither important nor ur-
gent (US – Unimportant, Slow). The labels of the Specifications matrix for the
information environment (RA, RI, SA, SI) are composed of mutually exclusive
properties of the availability of the Network (I - Internet and A - Autonomous)
and the presence of reduced or special functionality (R - Reduced and S - Spe-
cial). Labels of the transport specification (TA, TB, TC, TP) allow you to sort
tasks that require moving (T – Translocation) on an airplane (A), a bus (B), a
car (C) and on foot (P - Pedestrian), respectively. Three-letter marks of Affilia-
tions (belonging to an individual or legal entity) are formed from the first letters
of the name, middle name and last name or name of the laboratory, company,
project. Tactical marks accelerate decision-making when forming a daily list of
operational tasks.
Keywords: Task, Planning, Management, Priority, Specification, Affiliation,
Label, Operational, Tactical.
1 Introduction
1.1 Planning
Planning is a type of activity related to setting goals for future actions and ensuring
the fulfillment of tasks through obtaining and rational allocation of resources. The
effectiveness of planning depends on the correct definition of the goal and its corre-
sponding tasks at the initial stage of action.
The goal answers the question “What needs to be achieved?” and provides for
positive dynamics, a change in the current state of a certain entity towards improve-
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
400
ment, satisfaction of needs or requirements. In setting real goals, the hierarchical sys-
tematization of actions, the implementation of which is necessary for success, is im-
portant. Tasks answer the question “What actions can achieve the goal?”. When the
number of tasks increases from tens to several hundreds, their constant redistribution
is required in accordance with the modification of target priorities and the availability
of resources.
1.2 The Art of Task Management
The art of task administration is the ability to distinguish ensembles of parallel opera-
tions from a complex action (for example, by the similarity of the resources used) and
assign them to the appropriate performers according to their capabilities. Task man-
agement programs affect the efficiency of their administration in accordance with the
adequacy of the use of functionality in relation to scale and structure. The article
summarizes 25 years of experience in administrative task management through soft-
ware tools.
The effectiveness of the task is determined by the results of the initiation phase [1],
during which the following occurs:
1. The definition of the novelty of the problem. If the task is not new, the algorithm
for its solution is found in the group of tasks of the category “Instructions and work
schemes”. If the task is new, then the analysis proceeds to Stage 2.
2. Establishing the structure of the task, its main stages and their stages (if any), de-
termining the priority and specificity of the resources used.
3. Identification of parallel processes of different tasks and organization of their syn-
chronous execution.
4. Identification of the task in accordance with the phases, stages and stages of
achieving the goal (text, pictographic, color, sound).
To manage complex tasks with sequential ensembles of parallel operations (phas-
es), strategic planning is used. Tactical planning is the allocation of resources within
the ensemble of parallel operations of different tasks. Operational planning is neces-
sary to form the correct linear sequence of stages of each task. Organization of task
identification in accordance with priorities and specific features complements opera-
tional planning with tactical functionality. Experience shows that using the excessive
functionality of programs to manage strategic tasks in operational activities is coun-
terproductive. On the other hand, the efficiency of solving operational problems can
be increased by using tactical planning tools.
2 Specificity of the Management Programs Functional
for Strategic, Tactical, and Operational Tasks
Information tools for strategic planning should ensure the rational reallocation of
resources, determine critical stages and argue for material remuneration or punish-
ment of employees. To visualize strategic planning from the beginning of the 20th
401
century, Gantt diagrams [2] are used, which are widely used in modern professional
project management programs [3]. Tactical priority management of tasks with various
specifications of parallel resources used is effectively carried out in associative map-
ping programs [1, 4–6]. The organization of operational planning in applications for
working with mail, events and tasks, such as the classic Microsoft Office Outlook,
was simplified to create a list of tasks with optional “Important” notes, the ability to
color categories and set reminders for the execution date. Since 1995, the functionali-
ty of such programs has been repeatedly modified, but it remains unsuitable for man-
aging hundreds of tasks and synchronizing between various user devices. In the first
decade of the 21st century, attempts were made to organize the synchronization of
operational tasks between classical applications of desktop computers and mobile
equipment, but they were far from utilitarian due to constant malfunctions that led to
duplication of tasks or blocking work with data loss [7, 8]. For this reason, in the near
future, classic programs with the operational management of events and tasks, such as
Microsoft Office Outlook 2010, will cease to exist [9].
The situation began to change for the better after the emergence of “cloud” ser-
vices of operational data exchange between cross-platform mobile devices according
to the BYOD standard [10]. Modern cross-platform operational task management
applications support Office 365, Exchange, Outlook.com, Gmail, Yahoo! and other
popular services. Programs like Microsoft Office Outlook have been replaced by mo-
bile applications such as Mail and Calendar [11] and the cloud services associated
with them [12]. However, replacing tasks not tied to time with calendar events has
proven to be ineffective in practice: untimely task reminders teach the user to ignore
them. For operational task management, an application with specific functionality was
required.
3 The Optimal Functionality of Programs for Managing
Operational Tasks
On April 19, 2017, Microsoft introduced the new “To-Do” service for organizing
personal tasks. The basic “To-Do” functionality was inherited from the Wunderlist
service acquired by Microsoft together with the development team in June 2015 [13].
By the time the Wunderlist service was transformed, it already had 13 million users.
The “To-Do” service [14] adapted to the cross-platform information environment
provides real-time synchronization of tasks for Windows, Android, iPhone, iPad, as
well as smart watches Apple Watch and Android Wear. The traditional functional of
the task (deadline, reminder time, repeat, comment) is supplemented with the option
of creating stages, the names of which may contain hyperlinks. Another important
feature is adding files to tasks. By the beginning of 2019, the basic version of “To-
Do” contained the folders “My Day”, “Important”, “Scheduled” and “Tasks”, which
could be modified or supplemented by the user.
Many tasks with different priority, ownership and deadlines are created as a result
of working with a daily set of correspondence. The technical task of copying the
names of the created tasks from the messages of the mail manager and the formation
402
of links to them requires time. In May 2019, in order to increase the efficiency of
working with core derivatives of tasks in the Microsoft To-Do task management pro-
gram, a function was added to automatically create tasks with hyperlinks of the "Open
in Outlook" type to messages of the same name marked when working in the mail
manager. Such tasks are placed in a special folder “Marked Messages” and sorted by
the time of creation. The names of these tasks in Microsoft To-Do can be modified by
supplementing the labels of Priorities, Specifications, and Affiliations. Reciprocal
communication is established between the marked messages in Outlook and the corre-
sponding tasks in Microsoft To-Do, which provides bi-directional synchronization of
the change in the execution status or the resumption of the task with the removal or
reverse setting of the message label. To reliably synchronize the status of Outlook
messages and related Microsoft To-Do tasks, it is recommended that both applications
be started in advance before working with the content.
4 The Problem of Polymorphic Tasks Structuring
Based on the experience of 20 years of using task scheduling functionality in Mi-
crosoft Outlook [9] and paired mobile applications [8], the practical inefficiency of
quickly selecting a daily set of tasks from many folders with a hierarchical structure
was proved. Many important tasks do not have a deadline and their discovery for
inclusion in the action plan involves a significant consumption of time resources.
To create a set of tasks in the “My Day” folder, the Microsoft To-Do service auto-
matically offers upcoming tasks with a short deadline or reminder, expired and recent-
ly added tasks. Practical experience shows that the effectiveness of working with
tasks is reduced if their daily number exceeds ten. Another problem is the polymor-
phism of tasks (affiliation, priority, specifics). Distribution by folder is not an option,
because the logic of the distribution of tasks is violated when they are grouped in the
“My Day” folder. To optimize the management of multiple polymorphic tasks, opera-
tional planning tools should be supplemented with tactical planning elements.
5 Priority Labels for the Eisenhower Matrix
In 2017, while optimizing the tactical methods of managing project activities, we
adapted the D. Eisenhower time distribution matrix for use in the TheBrain associa-
tive map [1]. The classic decision matrix, named after its creator, Dwight D. Eisen-
hower (34th U.S. President), consists of 4 quadrants formed by combinations of pro-
jections of paired alternative properties of degree of importance (important / not im-
portant) and urgency (urgent / not urgent).
In order to ensure cognitive comfort when integrating the Eisenhower matrix into
the associative map of the project, we proposed upgrading the original names of the
quadrant to the two-letter abbreviations of the Priority labels (see Fig. 1): important
urgently (IF – Important, Fast); important indefinitely (IS – Important, Slow); not
important, but promptly (UF - Unimportant, Fast): neither important nor urgent (US -
Unimportant, Slow). The experiments over the course of nine months showed that
403
inserting priority labels in front of the task name ensures their effective automatic
sorting in the “My Day” folder of the Microsoft To-Do task management service.
Sorted tasks have become easier to redistribute by time slices:
IF – 14% of the time – 4 time slices – 1 hour (emergency problems)
IS – 66% of the time – 20 time slices – 5 hours (self-development and transfer of
experience)
UF – 20% of the time – 6 time slices – 1.5 hours (delegated routine)
US – 0% – extra-time – 2 time slices – 0.5 hours (unproductive loads).
Fig. 1. Modified Eisenhower matrix with priority labels.
6 Specifications Labels
For the distribution of tasks depending on the possibility of Internet access and the
availability of specific software and hardware functionality (media editors, accounting
and management programs, qualified electronic signatures, cryptographic providers,
etc.), we propose using the matrix of Specifications for the information environment.
On the sides of this matrix are mutually exclusive properties of Web accessibility
(I – Internet access and A – autonomous work) and the presence of special functional-
ity (R – reduced functionality and S – special functions). The intersection of the pro-
jections of pairs of mutually exclusive properties in the corresponding quadrants gives
4 variants of combinations of labels (see Fig. 2): RI — reduced access to the Network
according to the functional; SI – access to the Network with special functionality; RA
– autonomous work with reduced functionality; SA – autonomous work with special
functionality.
To redistribute tasks in accordance with the Eisenhower decision-making matrix
when the availability of the Internet and the hardware and software base changes, it is
enough to supplement the tactical Priority labels at the beginning of the task name
with Specifications labels.
404
In accordance with the characteristics of the resources required to accomplish the
tasks, it is advisable to form appropriate sets of tactical labels of the Specifications.
For example, the TP label allows you to group tasks that require walking (T - Trans-
location, P – Pedestrian), and the TC, TB, and TA labels – to associate tasks that re-
quire moving by car (C – Car), bus (B – Bus) and aircraft (A – Airplane), respective-
ly.
Fig. 2. Information Environment Specification Matrix
7 Affiliation Labels
If the fulfillment of tasks is associated with different individuals or legal entities and
projects, it is advisable to place the three-letter abbreviation after the tactical marks of
Priorities and Specifications, the Affiliation mark, formed from the first letters of the
name, middle name or last name of the laboratory, company, project.
For example, tasks related personally to the author of this article are identified by
the label “FOK”, administration tasks of the Laboratory for Multimedia Technologies
and MASTER-MULTIMEDIA Ltd. differ by the “LMT” and “MML” marks, respec-
tively; the tasks of managing the components of the Infocontinuum are labeled “ICM”
(Infocontinuum Components Management). Experience shows that when using the
standard functionality for grouping tasks through folders, the highest efficiency is
achieved if their names correspond to affiliation marks. This circumstance is due to
the relatively greater stability of the task affiliation property in comparison with the
priority and technical specification. A change in the affiliation label may occur as a
result of assigning tasks to other actors (the corresponding “Assigned” functionality
appeared in the Microsoft To-Do program in the summer of 2019).
8 Task Title Optimization
The names of tasks can be formed automatically from the headers of the marked mail
messages. In this case, it is enough to precede them with the corresponding labels of
Priorities, Specifications and Affiliations. It is advisable to carry out the independent
naming of tasks in a unified way and in such a way as to facilitate a full-text search
that is sensitive to differences between uppercase and lowercase letters.
405
Experience has shown that for self-organization of the procedure for fulfilling the
tasks of purchasing equipment, their names are recommended to start from the return
date of the order (YYYYMMMDD format), and then indicate the order number, sup-
plier and the name of the purchased equipment with a bottom underscore. For exam-
ple, the name of the task “UF TP FOK 20190422_N11080222_OnlineTrade_ROCK-
T14-TravelCharger_Logitech-K375s-Keyboard” means an urgent and important (UF)
purchase by the author of this article (FOK) of the Travel charger ROCK-T14 and the
Logitech K375s Keyboard (OnlineTrade store, number order 11080222 dated
04/22/2019) with a personal visit (TP) to the point of issue of orders. Such names are
conveniently used to name the folders of the file system containing financial and other
documents (manuals, photos of the delivery kit, etc.), as well as in the comments of
accounting programs. As a result, all documents and transactions related to the task
can be quickly found by the full-text search system by characteristic features.
9 Conclusion
The methodology for distributing operational tasks in the Microsoft To-Do program
by supplementing their names with preliminary tactical labels of Priorities, Specifica-
tions and Affiliations was formed during nine months in the process of organizing the
transfer of the resources of the Multimedia Technology Laboratory from the Faculty
of Biology of Moscow State University to the MASTER-MULTIMEDIA Ltd (150
tasks), modernization of the hardware base of Infocontinuum [5] (50 tasks) and organ-
ization of activities of a self-employed individual (15 tasks).
Experience has shown that the addition of operational task names with tactical la-
bels contributes to the effective achievement of goals by a variety of actors coordinat-
ing actions in both stationary and mobile conditions.
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