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We recently started a new appraisal form at our work, I as an employee need to fill this for myself,

Task Management

Give an example of a task that you managed and describe how you used your task Management, organisation and time management skills.

I have no experience or training in providing time frames on projects, this is because we don't have requirements up right when starting a project. Requirements keep changing and sometimes need to start project from scratch.

What would be the best way to answer this then ?

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    You're getting sidetracked by this task versus unfairness that happens in real life with your schedule. Answer the appraisal form question without reflecting on the injustices of your workplace. Give the example task, and describe what you did. When requirements keep changing and the project owner doesn't let the schedule slip has nothing to do with your self appraisal here. Jun 10, 2016 at 16:35

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I would answer in combination with different Tasks I had at the time.
(relavant to the Project(s) you had since the last aprraisal, otherwise take the last months/year)

During Project X I had Task 1 - 7. After organising my Tasks I gave Task 2,3 and 4 priority, because 2, 3 and 4 are required to start task 5 and to finish Task 1. After I did Task 2, 3 and 4 I found out that to do Task 5 I would Need help from co-worker John, since he did not have time I scheduled time with him, while in the meantime I finished Tasks 5,6 and 7.

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You have to manage tasks all the time. You can't wait until the end of the project and then remind someone you don't have the requirements, right? You have to decide what order to do things in. If you can't start something yet, because you're waiting for something else, you have to decide what to do while you're waiting. Right? This section of the appraisal asks you to tell a story about one time that you handled all this well.

Think of one recent project, and one specific aspect of that project, that you're quite proud of. Why are you proud of it? What happened and what did you do? Not the technical aspects of your solution but the organization (keeping track of a lot of little pieces) or management (reminding many different people what they owe you, or reconciling differing wants from differing stakeholders) or time management (making sure the requirements didn't change at the last minute, or that you finished in time for testing or whatever.)

Write it out in a long detailed messy way first, and read it over to figure out what you can conclude from it, what it shows about you. Then rewrite it to a smooth and crisp summary. It should start with that conclusion sentence: On the X project I showed my ability to A, B, and C under pressure from S and T. Then 5 sentences at most that tell the things you did - I sent out weekly summaries, I led the daily meeting, I met with I, J, and K twice a week - to make this all go so well. Do not include complaints in this story directly. Don't say "my project owner thinks changing the requirements shouldn't change the time frame." Instead, be specific and precise about what you did - helped the owner decide what to drop in order to keep the schedule even with new requirements, ensured resources were added to the team to keep the schedule even with new requirements, helped rework the schedule when requirements were changed, whatever you did.

Most people find these hard to write. Usually its not until you write the multi page version full of complaining about others and rich in irrelevant detail that you discover the story and conclusion hiding in the last year's work. Once you find it, tell it.

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  • True. Everything can be made to look like task management: You had to write your task mgmt appraisal and didn't know how, so you posted on stackexchange and evalulated answers after two days. Bam. Jun 10, 2016 at 18:38

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