Strategic projects are inherently necessary. They may enable the organization to remain competitive, meet compliance mandates, or maintain fiscal sustainability. However, many strategic projects elicit a long list of requirements that stakeholders believe are essential. When everything is a must-have, it becomes difficult to determine what truly belongs in the project and what can be deferred, reduced in scope, or eliminated entirely.
If you’ve struggled to narrow the field of critical requests in your strategic projects, consider these tips that can help your team assess what’s really a priority.
Require tying every “must-have” to a specific business outcome.
If a priority cannot be shown to directly support a required result or business case, the argument that it is a “must-have” doesn’t hold up.
- Does this priority support increasing revenue, reducing costs, or otherwise contributing to a positive financial outcome?
- Is it required for regulatory compliance or to meet a contractual or legal obligation?
Understanding the consequences of omitting a requested must-have can also help to identify what’s truly a priority and what isn’t.
- Will denying this request hinder the organization’s ability to recruit workers, secure funding, or compete in the marketplace?
- Would omission seriously complicate, delay, or undo future plans such as expansions, relocations, new product development, strategic acquisitions, or the entry into new markets?
Requests might feel necessary, but when viewed through the lens of top-line business outcomes, they may quickly become lower priority or optional in the near term. Requiring that advocates link requests to outcomes early in the planning process also reduces the likelihood that must-haves will surface too late in the project life cycle to go through a thorough prioritization exercise.
Include resource costs in scope decisions.
Rather than adding them in later during budget development and approval, require stakeholders to provide data-backed cost estimates for any high-priority requests while building the project’s scope. This puts must-haves into context very early in the discussion and clarifies how much the organization is willing to invest in those priorities. This approach also forces a deeper look if stakeholders introduce new or expanded must-haves as the development process continues. Leaders can review what portion of the approved budget the additional requirement might displace and make the trade-off using that context.
Establish a uniform priority ranking.
Different stakeholder groups often use different language to describe must-haves, and the resulting disconnects can create turmoil when determining priorities. Is critical the same as high? What about urgent, core, or essential? Without a shared framework to guide decision-making, everything looks important. Establishing a structure that defines priority tiers and clarifies related terminology reduces confusion and conflict. Once requests are placed into a single ranking structure, trade-offs become more transparent and every proposed must-have is evaluated on equal footing.
Increase the review surface across multiple functional areas.
Bringing representatives from multiple functional areas together broadens the pool of expertise and perspective for a more comprehensive review. The wider, committee-style context ensures that priorities are assessed on their value across the organization rather than within a single group. An added benefit is that stakeholders will generally develop stronger arguments to support including their identified priorities if they know they must secure support from a diverse group of decision-makers.
Restrict who can designate something as a must-have.
If too many stakeholders can submit items as requirements, the leadership team might spend an inordinate amount of time sifting through and ranking them. By capping submissions and identifying which roles within the strategic project group can submit must-haves, some ranking will naturally occur at the lower levels, ensuring that only the highest-priority items surface for executives to review.
Frequently Asked Questions About Strategic Project Prioritization
What makes a project requirement a true must-have?
A true must-have is a requirement whose omission would materially threaten an essential business outcome, create unacceptable compliance or legal exposure, violate a contractual obligation, or significantly undermine the project’s strategic purpose. A requirement that is merely desirable or beneficial should generally receive a lower priority.
How do you prioritize requirements in a strategic project?
Start by connecting each requirement to a defined business outcome and evaluating the consequences of excluding it. Then consider its cost, resource requirements, opportunity cost, organizational impact, and dependencies before placing it into a standardized priority category.
How can organizations prevent too many project requirements from becoming must-haves?
Organizations can establish clear criteria for what qualifies as a must-have, limit which roles can formally submit essential requirements, cap submissions when appropriate, and require stakeholders to provide evidence supporting the business value and consequences of each request.
Why should project costs be considered during prioritization?
Cost establishes the trade-off associated with a requirement. Evaluating financial and resource requirements during scope development helps leaders understand whether a proposed must-have creates enough strategic value to justify the resources it consumes or the other priorities it may displace.
Why is cross-functional review important for strategic projects?
Cross-functional review helps leaders evaluate requirements from an enterprise perspective. Representatives from finance, operations, technology, legal, compliance, and other relevant areas can identify costs, risks, dependencies, and opportunities that may not be visible to the stakeholder who originally submitted the request.