The second blog in our Business Case series focuses on creating a well-structured project prioritisation process to ensure that resources are directed to the most critical and impactful initiatives.
Once your Strategic Vision has been solidified and approved, the next crucial step is Project Prioritisation. This stage is pivotal in the capital allocation process, allowing organisations to decide which projects should be pursued based on their strategic significance, available resources, risks, and potential financial returns.
A well-structured project Prioritisation Process ensures that resources are directed to the most critical and impactful initiatives.
So, before you start:
Have you considered how your project sits within the wider system context?
How critical is it, compared to other local/ similar projects?
How do you evidence that your project is a priority project and the best application of resources?
Here’s a step-by-step guide to conducting a Project Prioritisation process that is both fair and transparent:
1. Define Objectives and Criteria
Clarify Strategic Objectives: Start by clearly defining the organisations’ or system’s strategic goals and objectives. These will serve as the foundation for evaluating and prioritising projects. Hopefully you already have these from your strategic vision work? (see last week’s blog, #1 Strategic Vision)
Establish Evaluation Criteria: Develop a set of criteria that will be used to assess and rank each project. Common criteria include:
- Strategic Alignment - Expected Benefits
- Risk
- Cost and Resource Requirements - Urgency and Time Sensitivity - Dependencies - Stakeholder Impact. ✏️ Top Tip: The evaluation criteria should be shared and agreed with stakeholders at the start of the process.
2. Identify and Collect Project Proposals
3. Project Documentation Analysis
4. Score and Rank Projects
5. Conduct Risk and Sensitivity Analysis
6. Review Resource Availability
7. System-wide Stakeholder Collaboration
8. Finalise Prioritisation
9. Communicate Results
10. Monitor and review
11. Plan for Contingencies
12. Document the Process
⭐Success Story: Devon ICS Priorisation Process
Although no business case is being prepared (yet!), we have supported a number of health systems with this process, helping them to define and agree their priorities (see Devon ICS Prioritisation process case study). This work can be vital for those projects which are progressed for investment and therefore require a business case. As ever, robust effective work at the beginning can pay dividends as the project progresses!
So, by following a robust and fair process, organisations can develop a systematic and transparent project prioritisation process that ensures resources are allocated to the most strategically valuable initiatives and can help manage the many and varied competing projects. This process helps to maximise the impact of projects, improving alignment with organisational and system goals, and enhancing overall project success rates.
Need help now?
Arrange a conversation with our expert Business Case Team. Contact Ian Sabini, Managing Consultant on: ian@gbpconsult.co.uk
Coming up next in our series of Business Case Club Blogs:
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