Does this sound familiar? “Everything is a priority.” Or, “We’ll find a way to get it done; we always do.”
Companies that think they can do it all are usually staffed with exhausted people. They may be seeing a lot of turnover, because their best employees are tired of resorting to heroics to accomplish unreasonable goals. And those companies are probably not achieving their strategic initiatives or sustaining them over time.
On the other hand, companies that adopt strategic portfolio prioritization are able to focus the entire organization on the work that is most critical for success. At the same time, they reduce organizational conflict and exhaustion. Companies that select fewer priority initiatives are 16 percent more likely to be in the top tier of their industry than those who have many or no priorities, according to a Booz & Company study. Those with many or no priorities are 10 percent more likely to be in the bottom tier of their industry. And McKinsey found that organizations that invest in strategic prioritization deliver 40 percent more value.
While the benefit is well worth the effort, prioritization has its challenges and some executives may balk either before or after you adopt it.
If you need help convincing the executive team that the benefits will outweigh the challenges, following are some typical objections and ways to overcome them.
Executives think prioritization is too bureaucratic and takes too long.
- Stress that focus enables acceleration. With the organization on the same page and working on fewer things, they will be more efficient and effective. Recall the times in your organization when you jumped in too quickly and the project failed. Use those examples to convey the point.
- Remind them that thorough planning saves time in the long run. If you start building a house before you know how many floors and bedrooms and bathrooms you need, the rework will take much longer than the planning would have taken.
- Cite the McKinsey research that found organizations that invest in strategic prioritization deliver 40 percent more value.
Executives don’t want to give up control.
- Prioritization will exclude some pet projects, rightfully so. And giving up some autonomy for the benefit of the whole can be a hard pill to swallow. Include executives in generating the prioritization criteria, governance process, and change management for improved buy-in. Incorporate the ability to challenge the scoring, to ensure you hear every perspective. But in the end, alignment is still required.
- Aim to show value quickly. Quick wins can demonstrate progress and affirm decisions. Pilot a small set of projects of varying type and size, and use the scoring to show how the strategically important projects rise to the top.
Prioritization can be imperfect, so executives think it’s not working.
- Identify the specific problem. When you rate projects by importance and complexity, are there scores that don’t make sense? Are you surprised by the projects that rose to the top? Are there obvious winners that didn’t make the cut? Look back at the criteria to ensure they are appropriate and weighted correctly.
- Start the process with a pilot group of projects. Does the prioritization make sense? Adjust the scoring until the governance team agrees.
- The data will never be perfect. Be flexible, but don’t let one person cram in a pet project. Document the variances so you can learn from them.
New executives come in and want to make their mark.
- Highlight the rationale for the prioritization methodology and how it was developed. Share the successes or tell the “before and after” story. Included testimonials from senior leadership who have seen the benefits.
- Explain why the governance committee supersedes the individual, but allow for changes. You might recommend adjusting the weighting of the criteria, for example.
Download the white paper, “Prioritization’s Toughest Challenge: Human Nature,” for solutions that include advanced approaches and ways to overcome the human nature elements that make prioritization challenging. →
Services: Project Portfolio Management, Strategic Realization
Industries: Life Sciences | Healthcare | Consumer Products | Industrial Products