Effective Project Management

Section H Prioritising Techniques

This section is about identifying which task for the subsequent allocation of who does it.

1 Group Work Using Flip Charts

1.1

List the issues on a flip chart and use the experience, knowledge, and judgement of the team to decide on the key issues. Use MoSCoW: must haves, should haves, could haves and won't haves. This will probably result in too much discussion or even generate arguments. Consequently, a voting process will be needed for a quicker selection; see 1.2 and 1.3.

1.2

List the issues on a flip chart and use a simple voting process.

1. Identify the decision‐making criteria such as ‘the most likely cause of the problem’ or ‘the least cost and shortest schedule’ and so on.
2. The number of single votes per person is equal to the number of issues x 0.2. If you think it is desirable to have a greater number of votes, increase the multiplying factor.
3. Each person allocates their votes to the idea or ideas they feel are most likely to succeed. For example, if the participants have four votes, one person may give three votes to idea number 4 and one vote to idea number 7. Add up all the votes, and select the most popular solution.

1.3

Again, list the issues on a flip chart, and use a prioritising voting process:

1. As above, identify the decision‐making criteria.
2. Give each participant five votes and ask them to select five choices, giving five points to their most preferred choice, four points to their next preferred choice and ...