Innovate to Elevate: A Strategic Approach to Project Selection and Prioritisation

In a recent dinner conversation, a friend posed a question that resonates with the challenges many organisations face: 'With numerous strategic initiatives and potential projects spread across different departments, how do we decide where to invest our resources?' This inquiry sparked a journey into the strategic domain of project management and the pivotal role of prioritisation. Join me as we explore the dynamics of project selection within evolving Project Management Offices (PMOs) and uncover actionable insights for the successful advancement of organisations.

Importance of Project Selection and Prioritisation

Strategic initiatives, according to Kaplan and Norton [1], guide businesses towards financial, customer, internal operation, and growth objectives. Navigating these initiatives within limited resources presents challenges. While generating and prioritising projects may rely on subjective judgment, a strategic selection approach is crucial [2,3], mitigating the risk of investing resources in misaligned projects.

A High-Level Process Framework

🗂️ Project Categories

Categorise projects to provide a structured view, enabling a targeted approach to selection and prioritisation. For example,

🔹 Continuous Improvement: Enhancing processes and workflows for efficiency.

🔹 Infrastructure: Upgrading or building the technological backbone for a robust and scalable IT infrastructure.

🔹 R&D (Research and Development): Focused on innovation and exploring new products, services, or technologies.

🔹 Product Development: Centred around creating or improving offerings to meet market demands.

🔹 Marketing and Branding Campaigns: Geared towards promoting products or services and building a strong brand presence.

🔹 Organisational Change: Addressing significant organisational shifts such as mergers, acquisitions, or major structural changes.

🔹 Compliance and Regulatory: Ensuring the organisation adheres to industry regulations and legal requirements.

🔍 Selection Criteria

Establish criteria within categories, considering Antony and Banuelas' [4] three groups of project selection criteria:

🔹 Business Benefits: Customer impact, financial impact, and impact on core competencies.

🔹 Feasibility: Required resources, project complexity, and available expertise.

🔹 Organisational Impact: Cross-functional and knowledge benefits.

Integrate factors like project timeline, capabilities integrity, and people commitment for a holistic approach [6]. Capabilities integrity, which overlaps with Antony and Banuelas' [4] feasibility group, ensures the organisation possesses the requisite skills and resources for successful project execution. The voice of the customer and strategic alignment are pivotal, ensuring projects align with organisational goals [3]. Pande et al. [6], however, suggest choosing five to eight factors most relevant to the organisation's needs for effective project selection.

⚖️ Criteria Weighting

Leverage techniques like Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for precise weight determination [5].

📊 Evaluation and Selection

Rigorously assess projects using matrices with identified and agreed factors [2].

Guiding Principles for Effective Project Selection with Examples

📜 Comprehensive Perspective

Align projects with strategic goals. For example, a technology company prioritises projects exploring emerging technologies for alignment with its forward-thinking strategy.

📜 Structured Approach

Employ tools and methodologies for systematic project selection. Implementing a project accumulator, like a centralised database, ensures a systematic approach to collecting and organising project ideas.

📜 Employee Involvement

Conduct participative sessions for factor prioritisation. Organisations hold strategic planning sessions involving employees and the management team to collectively prioritise factors. This collaborative approach fosters shared responsibility and ensures diverse perspectives are considered in the decision-making process.

📜 MCDA Techniques

Leverage Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) for effective evaluation [7]. Using MCDA, a technology firm evaluates potential projects based on market demand, technical feasibility, and alignment with long-term company goals.

Three Key Takeaways

📝 Strategic Alignment is Paramount

Prioritise initiatives resonating with the overarching vision for continuous innovation and technological advancement.

📝 Structured Approaches Enhance Decision-Making

Implement tools like project accumulators and prioritisation matrices for a comprehensive evaluation.

📝 Inclusive Decision-Making Strengthens Project Selection

Foster collaboration through employee involvement, ensuring diverse perspectives and shared responsibility.

Call for Action 📣

Your insights and successful methodologies in project selection and prioritisation are invaluable. Share your experiences to be a catalyst for success in our community. Let us embark on a dynamic conversation that propels both our community and strategic project management practices forward.

References

1. Kaplan, R.S., & Norton, D.P. (2006). Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies. Harvard Business School Publication Corporation, Boston, MA.
2. Salah, S. (2015). A Project Selection, Prioritisation, and Classification Approach for Organisations Managing Continuous Improvement (CI). International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 7(1), 98-110.
3. Su, C.T., & Chou, C.J. (2008). A Systematic Methodology for the Creation of Six Sigma Projects: A Case Study of Semiconductor Foundry. Expert Systems with Applications, 34(4), 2693–2703.
4. Sirkin, H.L., Keenan, P., & Jackson, A. (2005). The Hard Side of Management. Harvard Business Review, October, 1–12.
5. Antony, J., & Banuelas, R. (2002). Key Ingredients for the Effective Implementation of Six Sigma Program. Measuring Business Excellence, 6(4), 20–27.
6. Pande, P.S., Neuman, R.P., & Cavanagh, R.R. (2000). The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola, and Other Top Companies are Honing Their Performance. McGraw-Hill, New York.
7. Elbok, G., & Berrado, A. (2020). Project Prioritisation for Portfolio Selection Using MCDA. Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, 0(March), 2317–2326.
8. Saaty, T.L. (2008). Relative Measurement and its Generalisation in Decision Making: Why Pairwise Comparisons are Central in Mathematics for the Measurement of Intangible Factors - The Analytic Hierarchy/Network Process. RACSAM (Review of the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences, Series A, Mathematics), 102(2), 251–318.
9. Cooper, R.G., Edgett, S.J., & Kleinschmidt, E.J. (2000). New Problems, New Solutions: Making Portfolio Management More Effective. Research-Technology Management, 43(2), 18–33.

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