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Escaping the Everything in Progress Trap - Part 3 - Assessing What to Do
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The last couple of weeks we have talked about pull systems and how to set them up in Microsoft Planner. When deciding what to work on next as a team, it’s important to assess strategic alignment, business value and return on investment, technical feasibility, resource availability, risk profile, stakeholder support, timeline/urgency, and regulatory and compliance areas. One can do this by considering the following questions and scoring the area on a 1-5 scale (5 being aligned with the criteria, 1 being not well aligned). Strategic Alignment: Does this project directly support the organization’s strategy, OKRs, or declared annual priorities? Business Value/ROI: What is the expected financial return, cost reduction, revenue generation, or operational improvement? Is it high, low, or negative? Technical Feasibility: Is the required technology proven and accessible? Does the team have the skills to execute? Resource Availability: Are budget, people, and tooling accessible without major reallocation or new hiring? Risk Profile: What is the overall project risk across technical, financial, schedule, and delivery dimensions? (Score inversely — low risk = high score). Stakeholder Support: What is the level of executive sponsorship, team buy-in, and support from impacted stakeholders. Strong, good, limited, opposed? Timeline/Urgency: What is the time sensitivity and urgency? Is it a regulatory deadline, market window, competitive pressure, or internal need? Answering these questions can give you a good idea on if a project should be started. For a more detailed assessment scorecard, grab our free Basic Project Decisioning Scorecard by clicking here. In addition to letting you score each of these criterion, you can also put a weight on them and make notes and automatically get an assessment on if you should start on the project or work item. PS: Want a more advanced scorecard? Right now, the first 50 purchasers can get the same scorecard The Outlier Team uses to assess projects and work items to start for 50% off here. After that, the price returns to normal at $24.99. |
The Outlier Team
We help small businesses with technology, strategy, and leadership and have a passion for sharing what we have learned. Subscribe to our newsletter to get helpful weekly content.
"Why are so many people in this meeting?" I remember asking myself that question after attending a 90-minute committee meeting early in my career. Before that role, I had worked with an organization that was intentionally reducing the number of meetings employees attended. Meetings became shorter. Agendas became clearer. When a topic required deeper discussion, only the people who were directly involved met afterward. At the time, I assumed that was normal. Then I joined another organization...
Organizations often miss out on ROI because they struggle with using technology. Not because of lack of availability or training, but because of lack of adoption processes. One of the most effective ways we’ve seen organizations enhance adoption and increase technology usage and ROI is by building a Systems, Automation, and Technology (SAT) Committee. What is a SAT Committee? A SAT Committee is a cross-functional group made up of: Power users (the people who live in and are experts with your...
Last week, we talked about how using a pull system helped us get more work done. This week, we’re making that idea tangible by showing you how to build a simple Kanban board in Microsoft Planner, a tool you likely already have if you subscribe to Microsoft 365. 1. Open Microsoft Planner Sign in to Microsoft 365 (https://www.office.com). Select the App Launcher (grid or waffle icon in top left) in the top-left corner. Click Planner (it might be under More Apps > All Apps) 2. Create a New Plan...