Project Prioritisation

What the framework is

Project prioritisation compares proposed projects and initiatives to decide which get attention and resources first. The template starts with five criteria: Strategic Value, Potential Impact, Feasibility, Urgency and Resource Efficiency. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

What the result looks like

When it earns its place

Use it in annual planning, portfolio reviews, or whenever more projects are proposed than a team can run. It turns a negotiation between project sponsors into a shared judgement.

The trap is that everything becomes urgent. If every project ranks first on urgency, the criterion has stopped meaning anything. Comparing two at a time forces a choice.

How to run it with a group

1. Describe each project in a sentence, with its rough size.
2. Agree the weights before anyone compares.
3. Participants compare the projects two at a time on each criterion. Participants do not need an account to respond. Three to six options keep it manageable: with five options and five criteria, each person makes 50 comparisons.
4. Read the overall ranking, then the ranking per criterion. Fund from the top until capacity runs out, and say clearly which projects are not going ahead.

More templates like this

• ICE Scoring

  Prioritise options by Impact, Confidence and Ease. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• Multi-Criteria Analysis

  Prioritise options across five criteria: Impact, Feasibility, Cost-effectiveness, Equity, and Political Acceptability. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• RICE Prioritisation

  Prioritise options by Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• Value vs Effort

  Prioritise options by Value versus Effort to surface quick wins and avoid time sinks. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• WSJF

  Prioritise by Cost of Delay (User & Business Value, Time Criticality, Risk Reduction & Opportunity) against Job Size. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• Jobs To Be Done

  Prioritise the customer needs, frustrations, and outcomes that matter most. Useful for innovation, product strategy, service improvement, and customer research. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.