Life is busy.  I find myself shifting from one thing to the next in minutes and pride myself in being great at multi-tasking!  We often feel like we are doing a million things and have to adapt quickly to whatever the next area of focus might be.  With that said, I often have to slow down and regroup to think about what is most important.  Do I really need to have the house in perfect order before taking the kids to the bus stop?  What is essential to make it successfully through the day of activities?

The same applies to the initiatives we task ourselves with in our businesses.  As I have embarked on this journey to start my own consulting business, I have had to reprioritize the steps to get my business started on a regular basis.

I’m sure your team has lots of goals but there are only so many resources to support your long list of initiatives and you need to maximize your most important assets – PEOPLE, TIME and MONEY.  I know firsthand how difficult it can be to get everyone on the same page regarding what initiatives to focus on.  So where do you start?

Here are 6 steps to initiative prioritization that I have found to be extremely successful.

Step 1 –  Get organized.

Aggregate information in one place so you can share data with your team as you work through the prioritization process.  This is also a great way to start the discussion and gain consensus with team members and stakeholders on what is most important.

Step 2 –  Identify your top 3-5 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and Financial Metrics.

Critical success factors are those few things that must go well to ensure success for a business.  They represent managerial or enterprise areas that must be given special and continual attention to bring about high performance. CSFs include issues vital to an organization’s current operating activities and to its future success. Financial metrics typically include things such as initial cash and/or time required to complete an initiative, ongoing operating costs and return on investment (ROI) of the initiative.

Step 3 – Create a comprehensive list of ALL initiatives.

Take the time to meet with each of your team members to inventory the many initiatives that are being worked on across the organization.  There’s a good chance this list doesn’t exist or it is dispersed in many places.  Make sure the list of initiatives does not include daily tasks.  An initiative typically requires resources beyond your standard operating budgets and team members from more than one business function.

Step 4 – Rank your initiatives against your CSFs and financial metrics.

First you need to identify how important each of your CSFs are in comparison to your overarching company strategy and mission.  Next, consider the impact each initiative will have to your financials (i.e. drain on cash, time, increase to revenue, return on investment).  The combination of these two factors will help you rank the importance and profitability of your initiatives.

Step 5 – Review your analyzed results (Start, Stop and Continue).

Sort your initiatives based on the results of your rankings and assess the following:

• Are your associates focusing on initiatives that align with your company mission and goals?
• Are projects with high costs and low impact taking up too much time?
• Which initiatives should you “take a break” from or “STOP”?
• Which initiatives do you need to accelerate?

Take all of your output and identify what initiatives you need to start working on that have been ignored, stop because they don’t provide a solid return on investment or continue because they are important to your success!

Step 6 – Review the results with your project leaders and executives.

Getting the thoughts and input of others is an important part of initiative prioritization.  This also helps in gaining consensus and getting the team working together toward achieving their goals and reaching success.

Prioritization of initiatives isn’t always easy.  Some businesses have all of the information they need ready for review and analysis.  Others might need some help in quantifying the ROI of their projects, in valuing their CSFs or in the difficult task of inventorying their initiatives across multiple parts of their company.

Need help or not sure where to start?  Visit my website to download a free initiative prioritization worksheet that I created.  It follows these simple steps and can help you get organized around your priorities.  Or contact me to schedule a call and learn more about how I can assist you in prioritizing your initiatives.