Prioritising Initiatives Tool

www.optimumfx.com

Intent of session

This exercise will:

• Provide you with a common and consistent tool for prioritising projects and initiatives

• Expose the likely difficulty and resource required to implement, allowing appropriate management decisions

• Understand alternative methods of prioritisation

Why prioritise initiatives?

• To maximise your return on investment – time and money

• Limited time and resource means that as leaders you have to choose the most impactful initiatives

• The amount of change that individuals comfortably take on at any time is limited – therefore executing the highest priorities first ensures maximising results

Allows a group of people to come to a common consensus reasonably quickly and expose this in a format that can be shared

Prioritisation Tool options

Tool Benefit Downside Usage guideBubble chart Exposes three dimensions

for better decision makingTakes some timeNeeds a good comprehension to work

Site / Group level strategies

Importance element of Bubble chart

Use multiple criteria and weighting to systematically rate level of importance

Takes some timeCriteria need to be correct for it to work properly

Site / Area / Line level strategies

A, B, C, then rank Quick and simple Goes on gut feel and sometimes difficult to get group consensus

Area / Line / Machine level strategies

NB - Lots more choices out there too

Focus on Bubble chart prioritisation

Three dimensions

• What is the perceived level of importance for each project/initiative relating to delivery of vision/strategy

• To ensure success it is important to pick relevant criteria Importance

• What is the perceived level of difficult y to implement this project

• Consider how much change is involved, recent success/failure of similar projects, how ready people are for change (culture)

Difficulty

• What is the perceived level of resource / energy and time required to deliver this project / initiative

• Consider specialists required and specific levels of management

Time/Resource

Prioritise your initiatives/projects

Top priority-Important -Easy

High priority-Important -Hard

Distractions?-Least important -Easy

Lowest priority-Least important -Hard

-How much labour/resource you will need to implement change

More Important

More Diffi

cult

Sweep through chart to order initiatives

Size of bubble

Data to Create a Priority Chart

List initiatives & projects here (max

20)

Choose a set of importance criteria (should link to

strategy delivery / achievement of vision)

Choose a set of difficulty criteria (what will

contribute to making this difficult)

List the resources (people) that will be involved with

delivery – use levels

Utilise the weighting across all criteria to reflect

relative importance in each dimension

Score 0-3 for each initiative under each

criteria. Focus on Importance for all

initiatives first

Resources required could be done using 0-3 or typical hours per month or week involved in

each initiative

Tip: Just use the importance area for a quick prioritisation

tool

Using the outcome of the bubble chart

• Importance– Highest priority should be considered for immediate implementation– A champion that will definitely get a result would be good for these projects at an

appropriate level– Tracking should be thorough and regular

• Difficulty– Difficult projects should be put under appropriate management– Close control and tracking– Communication is key in difficult projects – aim to over communicate

• Resource / time– For major projects, with impact across multiple layers it maybe worth considering a

steering committee and a specific project charter that is tracked separately and included in the site scorecard

– Small energy/effort projects may be quick wins and could be prioritise

Using to help build a Milestone plan

• When building your Milestone plan, do so with reference to your bubble chart – answering the following questions:

– Should we start all initiatives now, how could it best be phased?

– Have we assigned an appropriate champion?

– What is the review process/methodology?

– Who is involved with the reviews?

– Do we need some kind of tracking mechanism (scorecard)?