Project Prioritisation

When more projects are proposed than your team can deliver, which should go ahead first? Chase Consulting helps your leadership team compare competing projects and improvement ideas, agree where to commit resources and decide what can wait.

Which projects should we start, defer or stop?

A team might propose upgrading equipment, replacing a system and fixing a customer service problem. Each proposal makes sense on its own. The harder decision is which one deserves the same people, budget or management attention first.

Craig Peacock facilitates a prioritisation workshop with the people responsible for funding and delivering the work. Bring your current project list, including work already under way and ideas still being considered.

How we help you set priorities

Agree on what matters. We start with your business objectives and the constraints your team faces. Together, we choose criteria that reflect the decision. These might include customer benefit, cost savings, risk reduction, urgency and the effort required. We identify any mandatory work and account for the capacity it will use.

Compare projects on the same basis. Your team assesses each proposal against the agreed criteria. Where views differ, Craig helps the group examine the assumptions behind them. If a proposal looks promising but its benefits are uncertain, the next step may be a small trial or a business case.

Decide what happens first. We use the ranking to agree a realistic sequence. For example, a system upgrade may offer the greatest benefit, but a smaller data-quality project may need to happen first. The roadmap captures that dependency, so the team knows where to start.

What you receive

• A ranked project list showing the criteria used and the reasons for the priorities.

• A recommendation for each project covering which to start or continue, which to investigate further and which to defer or stop.

• A delivery roadmap showing the proposed sequence, key dependencies and where to commit resources first.

If you already have a project list, bring it to the first conversation along with the budget, staffing or timing constraint that makes the decision difficult.