Companies constantly work on projects to surprise customers with new products such as mobiles, services, computers, etc. But how can they decide which task comes first? That’s when the prioritization of projects comes into play.

When you identify which task, process, or situation to address first, you are more likely to finish them quickly and keep working on the next assignment.

If you didn’t know about the prioritization process strategy, you might be losing resources, time, value, and opportunities to succeed in your business.

This article covers all you need to know about prioritizing and will give you a deep insight so you can start putting your effort into more important tasks.

Priority in project management means it’s urgent.

It refers to how fast you must complete a project before the due date. Project managers are responsible for determining how important a project is to assign it as a priority. When you deliver the product, it should include the expected results that the PM set.

Of course, you can’t randomly assign higher-priority projects. You need to consider different aspects, such as:

• Deadlines.
• Money used for the project.
• Other resources needed.

When you prioritize projects, you must weigh these situations to make effective resource allocation decisions – after all, company resources are scarce.

So, to ensure that only well-aligned projects are considered – as a PM or a business owner – you need to apply Project Prioritization to achieve your strategic goals.

Project Prioritization is part of the project management process. It reviews, determines, and prioritizes existing projects according to multiple criteria, such as strategic objectives.

You determine project priorities by rank, ROI (Return On Investment), and importance for the department in the company.

Here are some projects that you should mark as a priority:

• New hires that could use company resources.
• Extra security layers for your server.
• Production infrastructure.
• Training.
• Senior management teams establishment.

Ensure you are selecting strategic projects that follow your goals. Not all projects are high-priority projects. Most of them could be resolved after a few considerations.

Setting up a structured project prioritization process is necessary to use company resources wisely.

If you want to excel in your project portfolio management, the prioritization of projects should be your primary concern. 

This way, businesses can minimize risks, dedicate time and control the money spent. It also helps navigate critical resource constraints when your resources are more than limited.

Without proper prioritization, lower-priority projects could be considered instead of complex projects that are more demanding for the project teams and could help the company grow.

Many organizations that don’t have a person in charge of discriminating between urgent and important project requests aren’t growing enough. This is because they don’t know which process is healthier for their business objectives.

Understanding relative priorities and applying resources correctly will benefit your company’s business units and increase the project’s success.

If you’re still wondering “why is project prioritization important?”, Here are the benefits of a good project prioritization process:

Get The Maximum Value from Your Operational Teams

Managing multiple projects is hard. Finding ways to allocate resources is hard. Losing projects because you can’t find prioritization criteria is also tricky. You must choose your heavyweight. 

The thing is that when you have an excellent prioritization of projects, you can start ranking projects based on established criteria and complete them in time for delivery.

When you do this, your business will keep growing, and you’ll be able to assign resources to different business units for further expansion.

Rank Projects Better To Bring More Value To Your Organization

When you follow a strategic prioritization method like a Priority Matrix, you can change priorities to your company's current projects.

This will allow you to bring value to everyone in your business – employees or third parties alike – and find the relative importance of each of your projects.

Once you have initiated the processes that matter, you can delegate, put in pause, or reject other projects.

Increased Project Success Rate

Following strict prioritization increases approved projects that are aligned with the company’s vision, mission, and goals.

This strategic alignment will help the business thrive and complete individual projects. You won’t have to worry about constant struggle or lower-value work when you know how to meet deadlines.

Improves Communication Between Team Members

When you follow an analytic hierarchy process with an execution mindset, you’ll select more accessible and faster projects.

This translates into less stress, more progress, risk tolerance, and better internal communication between members that work on the same projects.

Creates a Governance Team After Managing Multiple Projects

When you have a project-based business, you look for professionals and reliable people to work with.

Combining these elements with a project management software helps you with prioritization matrices for old and new projects. You’ll create senior leaders that will build their teams for future processes.

It doesn’t matter what existing constraints or competing demands are; you will still thrive with this methodical business model.

Now that you have the basics of prioritization and managing your team’s time, you must learn reliable models that align with your business goals. This way, you ensure resources for high-value work instead of using them for other projects.

Kano Model

This model explores the user’s satisfaction level obtained with a project's features. You will have to develop a questionnaire that will break down elements to know what the user thinks.

The Kano model poll should include the following:

• Ease of use.
• Basic features.
• Attractiveness.
• Unique features.

So, if your project will develop a unique, attractive, valuable, and intuitive product, it should be your top priority.

Scoring Model

The scoring model helps you set priorities faster and more flexibly than other processes. You must select the criteria you will follow to know which project comes first.

To do that:

• Choose at least four factors that make you change priorities. For example, benefits, costs, and impact.
• Set up a range from 1-10 to rank your projects.
• Assign importance to each category you chose.

Now, do a test to see if you get trustful results. You could try it in the company’s departments or among a few employees.

Moscow Method

The Moscow model is a prioritization process that considers the stakeholders' desires. This makes your decisions limited to their choices and could hinder workflow.

The MOSCOW name is an acronym for what you should count as necessary. That includes:

• Must have: Involves the elements that are necessary to complete the project. E.g., money and time.
• Should have: What stakeholders consider the product should have when you develop it. E.g., a bigger screen.
• Could have: What holders would want the product to have. But it’s not essential.
• Won’t have: Components that aren’t necessary and should be eliminated.

This priority model is helpful for simple projects. Since you have a limited point of view, you should use fewer resources in these processes.

There are two definitions you should consider when developing essential projects. 

This is not only because competing demands require individuals to use the right resources to prioritize work but also because – as a project manager – you must consider ROI as part of the potential risks.

Payback Period

The payback period expresses how long the project will take to recover the investment. To measure this factor, you must divide the total cost by the average annual cash inflows.

The most important projects will have their investment returned in less time, and decision-makers will then reconsider if the cost to expand the project is worth it or not.

Net Present Value

The NPV calculates the value between the project’s cost today and its future importance. When prioritizing work using this metric, you should always focus on projects with a higher NPV.

You should then use other methods to confirm if the potential risks and benefits are worth prioritizing the project.

We know project prioritization is a time-consuming task. You have to review various criteria, make a story mapping or even create a data envelopment analysis team to help you do all the calculations.

However, to manage a thriving business, you need to prioritize.

So, here are five signs that you need a project manager to start changing priorities and making your company grow.

1. You have too many important projects. If you have more than three projects marked as “high priority," something is wrong – unless you have a huge team working with you. Companies usually work with only a few projects to release them fast and have a quick win that will help them fund more quickly.

2. Lack of communication. The most crucial aspect of a team and a business is communication. It may seem obvious, but if you don’t express ideas clearly, assess with others or brainstorm with colleagues, you can’t find suitable solutions to problems. 

3. You spend too much money. Money is the base of your business. Whether the capital is yours or your stakeholders doesn’t matter. If you can’t control your outflow, you can’t fund projects adequately.

4. You don’t finish your projects fast enough. When you don’t know which project comes first, you can’t decide which should be completed first. This will make your performance go down, and risks will increase.

5. You don’t use the proper criteria. If you don’t use the models and methods mentioned before – or any other – you can’t determine which project comes first.

6. You give too much liberty to your business units. A running business needs independent departments. That’s clear. However, your divisions can’t follow different strategic goals if you want to reach your full potential. Establish a standard plan and work towards it.

7. You don’t have acceptable success rates. This is the effect of all the other signs. Your business will fail when your tasks accumulate, you don’t manage, and you don’t even bother improving communication.

To deliver maximum value in your projects, you will need productivity tools. Microsoft Office offers you the following:

• A budget productivity suite to work both offline and online.
• Possibility to track your project's progress.
• Execute and plan the projects you’re focused on.
• Control more initiatives and identify new opportunities.

To get Microsoft Office 2021 suite, you can go to RoyalCDKeys and get the complete set of tools for only a couple of bucks.

This official CD key will activate your software before or after you install it. With the suite, you can work on the following:

• Text editors.
• Spreadsheets.
• Planners.
• Slide creators.
• Databases.
• Email clients.

And if you have the Microsoft 365 integration, you can share all your documents in real-time and work with your colleagues. This will speed things up, reduce delays, and you’ll get to control what your employees are doing.

Get this Microsoft Office now to track high-quality and crucial projects!

Microsoft Office Templates To Manage Project

As a project manager – or the person in charge of prioritizing projects – you should have templates at your disposal. But if you don’t, don’t worry.

We have gathered the main project management templates for Excel that you must use to have a solid project prioritization on your company.

Some of them are:

• Gantt Chart Template.
• Project Status Template.
• Task list and project tracker Template.
• Simple project budgeting Template.
• Project time management Template.
• Project plan Template.

These six documents will help you improve your manager skills ASAP. Apply them for every important project in your company to control it and deliver it on time!

Prioritizing projects should be one of the most important tasks you must implement as a business owner if you want to see your company thrive.

Having a Project Manager in charge of implementing a system that allows you and other dependencies to identify project opportunities is a crucial step, especially for a manufacturer or a SaaS provider.

It doesn’t matter if you are a small business or a big company. When you start to invest in prioritization, you’ll see that your products will have better reception from customers and fewer delays, more cash flow, and a higher success rate.

You’ll also make your stakeholders happy – which is crucial to welcome more investments.