Task management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Task management is the process of managing a task (or task portfolio) through its life cycle, including
planning, testing, tracking and reporting. Task management can help either individuals achieve goals, or
groups of individuals collaborate and share knowledge for the accomplishment of collective goals.[1] Tasks also
differentiate by complexity, from low to high.[2]

Effective task management supposes managing all aspects of a task, including its status, priority, time, human
and financial resources assignments, recurrency, notifications and so on. These can be lumped together
broadly into the basic activities of task management.

Managing multiple individual or team tasks may require special task management software which is available
on the Web. Specific software dimensions support common task management activities. These dimensions
exist across software products and services and fit different task management initiatives in numerous ways. In
fact, many people believe that task management should serve as a foundation for project management
activities.[3]

Task management may form part of project management and process management and can serve as the
foundation for efficient workflow in an organisation. Project managers adhering to task-oriented management
are known for having a detailed and up-to-date project schedule, and are usually good at directing team
members and moving the project forward.[4]

Contents
[show]

[edit]Task Life Cycle

 Ready

 Assigned

 Terminated

 Expired

 Forwarded

 Finished

 Failed
Following state machine diagram describes different states of a task over its life cycle. This diagram is
referenced from IBM.

[5]

[edit]Activities Supported by Tasks

As a discipline, task management embraces several key activities. Various conceptual breakdowns exist, and
these, at a high-level, always include creative, functional, project, performance and service activities.

 Creative activities pertain to task creation. In context, these should allow for task planning, brainstorming,
creation, elaboration, clarification, organization, reduction, targeting and preliminary prioritization.

 Functional activities pertain to personnel, sales, quality or other management areas, for the ultimate
purpose of ensuring production of final goods and services for delivery to customers. In context these
should allow for planning, reporting, tracking, prioritizing, configuring, delegating, and managing of tasks.

 Project activities pertain to planning and time and costs reporting. These can encompass multiple
functional activities but are always greater and more purposeful than the sum of its parts. In context project
 activities should allow for project task breakdown, task allocation, inventory across projects, and concurrent
access to task databases.

 Service activities pertain to client and internal company services provision, including customer relationship
management and knowledge management. In context these should allow for file attachment and links to
tasks, document management, access rights management, inventory of client & employee records, orders
& calls management, and annotating tasks.

 Performance activities pertain to tracking performance and fulfillment of assigned tasks. In context these
should allow for tracking by time, cost control, stakeholders and priority; charts, exportable reports, status
updates, deadline adjustments, and activity logging.

 Report activities pertain to the presentation of information regarding the other five activities listed, including
graphical display.
[edit]Task Management Software

Task management software tools abound in the marketplace. Some are free; others exist for enterprise-wide
deployment purposes. Some boast enterprise-wide task creation, visualization and notifications capabilities -
among others - scalable to small, medium and Fortune 100 size companies, from individual projects to ongoing
corporate task management.

Project management and calendaring software also often provide task management software with advanced
support for task management activities and corresponding software environment dimensions, reciprocating the
myriad project and performance activities built into most good enterprise-level task management software
products.

Software dimensions criss-crossing nearly all lines of task management products include task creation, task
visualization, notifications, assign resources, compatibility, configurability, scalability, and reporting

 Task creation encompasses collaborative capabilities for turning ideas into actions (tasks). Includes
activities involved before setting tasks, particularly patterns of collaboration involving planning

 Task visualization encompasses presentation of tasks, most often through time and list forms. Priority
visualization encompasses classification (e.g., budget, time, stakeholder) and mechanism (e.g., color code
or text). Calendaring covers scheduling (e.g., availability, meetings, appointments and other potential
conflicts) and notifications.

 Notifications encompass configurable settings for informing past, present and pending deadlines.

 Assigning resources encompasses the ability to delegate tasks and tools to single or multiple people.
 Compatibility encompasses the ability of a task management environment to connect to other systems,
software and environments. It includes setting a structure and restrictions on communication going from
the task management environment to other software, systems and environments.

 Configurability encompasses ability to add, remove and manage functionality and usability in task
management environments.

 Scalability encompasses ability to perform a task properly when a change in the quantity of users is done
to meet the specific task requirements.

 Reporting encompasses presentation of information by displaying either in tabular or graphical display.

Activity Management

ACTIVITY MANAGEMENT
With SAP CRM, organizations can schedule and manage simple and complex tasks, which enable sales
professionals to manage their time, tasks, and activities more effectively reducing sales times and increasing
productivity.

Key activity management capabilities of SAP CRM include:

Ability to schedule and manage simple and complex tasks
Ability to capture and access every customer activity, including all communication transactions, such as
appointments, dates, telephone calls, e-mails, letters, meetings
Tight integration into all business transactions since core capabilities can be used in each phase of the CRM
process and sales cycle Support for team selling
*An activity journal to record, update, and track critical customer information gathered from each customer
interaction, including feedback on needs and requirements, and products and services discussed. The feature
also includes a user-friendly wizard, which enables sales professionals to maintain activity journals through
customizable templates
*The ability to integrate many different areas of data and dynamically create a variety of surveys. For example,
pharmaceutical companies could use such surveys to track the batch and product numbers of free samples
offered during customer visits, while retailers could report the number of campaign costs, and other details
Bi-directional synchronization of SAP CRM activities and calendars with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes,
ensuring that changes sales professionals make to their CRM calendars show up in the third-party solutions as
well
* Enterprise Sales Only

Show Document Flow

Business Benefits Customer

Vendor
Increases sales rep productivity by providing the ability to more
effectively manage and prioritize time and tasks Request visit

Provides the ability for sales rep to more accurately evaluate and Receive visit and show interest in product
manage activities and relationships or service

Receive quotation
Ensures team selling through collaboration, communication, and
management of critical activity and task details with the extended Initiate marketing campaign
sales team
Check calendar and create activity

Create task list, gather information and

 prepare visit

Business Benefits Visit customer

Reduce cost of selling by providing key contact, opportunity and Create quotation
activity management capabilities necessary to improving internal sales
processes and ensuring sales team productivity, effectiveness, Write visit report
shortened sales cycles and richer customer interactions
Create follow-up activity

Ensures sales rep productivity and effectiveness by providing visibility Analyze activities
into every customer and prospect interaction history
.

Activity Management
This scenario addresses the following business challenges:

To reduce its sales costs, companies must minimize the time that sales professionals spend on routine chores and
maximize the time they spend actively selling.

Sales reps are burdened with many activities throughout the day and have no way to schedule simple "to-dos",
delegate actions, or manage complex tasks

To ensure productivity and efficiency, organizations must ensure that sales professionals do not spend costly sales
time on coordinating routine tasks and activities

The next section describes the scenario in more detail:

Your campaign manager creates a campaign for a new product or service for a specific target group.
When hearing about the campaign, your customer shows interest in the product or service and calls you to request
a personal visit or demonstration.
Your sales representative checks his or her calendar, creates an activity to visit the customer, and invites a sales
assistant to come along. This appointment appears in the calendars of the sales representative and the sales
assistant.
Your sales representative creates a task list for preparing the meeting. He or she has already prepared the
presentation and marketing collateral. Product or service information is also available. He or she attaches these
documents to the activity.
The sales representative visits the customer. During the visit, the sales representative calls up the activity and uses
the attachments for the presentation. The customer is very interested in the product or service and asks for a
quotation.
When receiving the visit, your customer shows interest in a product or service of yours. Your sales representative
creates a quotation as a follow-up document before leaving the customer and hands it out to him or her.
On the way home, your sales representative and the sales assistant stop at a café and write the visit report.
Back in the office, the sales representative creates a follow-up activity for the customer.
Your sales manager can finally display and review all sales activities.

(*This scenario is written from the perspective of you as a Vendor)

This business scenario is supported as of SAP CRM Release 4.0.