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Project Management \ Project Prioritization
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Decide High Priority Projects

Decide High Priority Projects

Once project proposals have been submitted and collected, establish a process to identify the highest priority project proposals. This will include maintaining an inventory of proposed projects, applying ranking criteria, and establishing the highest priority proposals.

Determining high priority projects consists of two key steps:

Apply criteria to compare and rank projects
Obtain senior management approval

When you have completed this program, you will have:

A current inventory of proposed projects for prioritization.
A prioritized list of projects based solely on the information submitted in the project proposals.
A prioritized list of projects, adjusted by the project prioritization committee.
Printable lists of projects ranked by priority.
Templates for obtaining management approval to proceed to the next stages of project prioritization.

This phase will take on different formats according to each organization’s requirements. The primary stage of analysis is based only on the information as submitted in the project proposal forms; however, multiple iterations of management/committee-based evaluations can be completed as required.

Advanced

Steps		Tools	Related Research
Step 1: Apply Criteria to Compare and Rank Projects The project ranking and prioritization process should be efficient and effective. This step is concerned with determining the key criteria for comparing and evaluating projects, as well as ranking the projects by importance and priority. Info-Tech Tip: Customize the tool by running multiple iterations of prioritization (i.e. sensitivity analysis/"what-if" analysis). In the tool’s two scoring tabs, adjust the importance levels and project scores, to test different strategic scenarios.
	1.1 Rank Projects Once the project proposal deadline has passed, an inventory of the submitted projects must be created. The inventory involves developing a complete list of all project submissions with enough descriptive information about each to allow them to be analyzed and compared. This step helps users define how projects are to be evaluated so that there is some level ground upon which to compare and rank all projects. For example, considerations such as business impact and criticality will be taken into account. Once the criteria have been established, the proposals should be evaluated and ranked according to priority	Project Prioritization Master Tool	Requirements Analysis or Feasibility Study? Project Sizing Analysis Grid
Step 2: Obtain Senior Management Approval At this stage, the project prioritization committee must communicate rankings to senior management and obtain support for initiating the projects themselves. Info-Tech Tip: Balancing projects across business units can be affected by environmental factors, political factors, or other non-quantitative factors. Though this might change the results of how projects get prioritized or agreed upon by senior management, it is important to remember that this prioritization process is still valuable in providing management with the appropriate information needed to make informed decisions.
	2.1 Obtain Senior Management Approval for Prioritized Project List Nothing is final without senior management support and approval. The projects that have made it to this point are considered as short-listed projects for pending approval. This stage will assist in informing senior leaders of prioritization results, and obtaining executive approval. It is important to note that the possibility exists that senior management may adjust or reject the recommendations presented. If this is the case, the "Project Prioritization Master Tool" can be revisited and used to re-evaluate the revised list of valid project proposals.	E-Mail Approval Template