Here’s how to prioritise effort at work

Like everyone else there’s too much on your plate and not enough hours in the day. For most companies it’s a case of too many conflicting priorities and not enough resources to deliver them all.

So how do you prioritise effectively?

Firstly be clear that prioritisation means making choices. It means some things will have to fall by the wayside. Do not list 60 projects and end up simply re-ordering them. You’ll find dropping things difficult but remember it’s best to deliver a small number of projects well than deliver many more half-baked.

On two recent assignments I’ve been tasked with helping to build a prioritisation framework that can help get the team rally behind a final set of deliverables, knowing that those cast out where done so for good reason.

So how should you go about it?

That’s a big rock aka. project

1. List all your projects no matter how big or how small. This might take a while but it’s important to have a total overview of everything that is in-flight. In my experience some companies can focus too narrowly on what a Program Management Office has oversight of. The risk here is that it’s all the smaller projects that collectively take up a significant amount of resources.
2. Give everything a category. There are loads of ways to do this. You might want to label things as ‘Big Bets’ (projects that are high reward, high risk and high complexity) or ‘Stepping Stones’ (projects that still deliver a reward but are less risky and less complex). At one client we simply thought about everything through the lens of effort and impact. We therefore categorised work as being a ‘rock’, ‘pebble’ or ‘grain’. The rocks were the big projects and the grains those things that could be done by 1 or 2 people in no time at all. Of course behind all this we needed to define what we meant by each definition to avoid confusion and make identification easier.
3. Assess effort, impact, urgency and risk. For every project assess and score how much effort something will take, what positive impact it will deliver, how urgent it is and what risk profile it carries. Just label everything as either high, medium or low. Remember to give guidelines for what constitutes a high impact project or a low risk project. The best way to avoid bias is to secure support from a prioritisation or program office function that can help score all effort without pet projects clouding judgement.
4. Think back to history. Lots of projects are new, but he majority will have been attempted before in some guise. Review previous projects that have a similar profile. How long did it really take to deliver? How beneficial were the eventual outcomes? Does the company have a good track record at delivering this type of effort? The future might not repeat the past but it’s worth sense checking historical cases to help make judgement calls.
5. Consider other factors. The attributes of effort, impact, urgency and risk is useful but might not give the whole story. For one client we looked at the impact on the business model. This allowed us to identify those projects where the risk profile was bigger than we originally assumed. It allowed the team to investigate further as to whether it should stay on the list.
6. Think resources. Prioritisation isn’t just about having enough people and money to get things done. It’s also about having enough of the right people available. By cataloguing which teams are involved in each project you can work out two things. One, which teams are going to be overstretched and two, which projects simply do not have the right skilled individuals to make it happen. You can then de-prioritise or make the case for more investment and people.
7. Be dynamic. Prioritisation is a forever mission. Half way through the year you might review a project and decide that the impact is lower than originally intended. You might decide that given resource constraints you might be better off to kill the project and reallocate to something else. This is a much better approach than simply continuing blindly just because it was on a list somewhere. You’ll also have new demands coming on-stream from other teams as the year progresses. By using some of the tips here you can be sure that making decisions will be evidence based.

By following the steps above you can make some sensible decisions about where to focus your effort and energy as a company.

At Strategy Activist we work with clients to help improve how they deliver programs and projects. We work alongside internal teams to prioritise effort and assign resources effectively. To learn more about how we can help visit us at www.strategyactivist.com or call us on +44 7786063053.