David WinnSenior Program Manager| DatabricksCa, United States
Hi PMs!
I'm in the process of re-vamping our IT Project Intake scoring system and am seeking your examples of how you or your companies use scoring models to assess IT Project Intake.
Our current model is a lightweight Smartsheet form in which we assess Business Value vs. Level of Effort. We have 5 weighted factors in the Business Value section and 3 weighted factors in Level of Effort. We then take both scores and map the Projects on a graph to get a 2 by 2 quadrant style view of our project portfolio (and we currently have a lot of high value, high effort projects which are complex, strategic and definitely take up the majority of our PM/BA resource time).
I think some of our factors are way too hard to assess and overly subjective, so I'm seeking examples before I roll out a new design for stakeholder review.
Thanks in advance for your participation!
Regards,
Dave
IT PMO
Databricks Saving Changes...
Sort By:
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
We are using VPM (Value Portfolio Management) and moving to LPM (Lean Portfolio Management). First of all we take into account the actual business state (embrionic/growth/mature/aging). To have a first estimation we use a T-shirt estimate where we take into account strategy alignment/resources capability/cost/benefits (quantitative)/risk. We classify candidate projects into maintenance/transformation/required. Saving Changes...
A couple of alternate prioritization approaches you might want to investigate are ranking using Weighted Shortest Job First and prioritizing based on throughput accounting considering your most constrained skill set.
Regardless of the approach taken, a couple of key considerations are:
1. The approach needs to be followed consistently but allow for very specific exceptions
2. The approach supports the discussion between governance stakeholders, not replacing it
Weighting dissimilar variables can be difficult, especially when they are subjective. A way around that is using fuzzy logic, which sounds more complicated than it really is, especially if you are in IT. It is a common approach to compare things like systems architectures which have very dissimilar attributes like performance vs. aesthetics to find a solution that is the best fit for the customer; or to determine which Disney character is most like you.
You create a number of simple scoring scenarios such as, "If urgency is high, and cost is low, then priority is high." That creates your "fuzzy sets". Then you can rank your incoming project criteria against a simple scoring system (urgency, cost, complexity, time to completion, business value, etc.) Fuzzy logic compares your ranking of an incoming project against the fuzzy sets to determine your output.
I concur with Kiron that the scoring system should not be the only consideration. Since the scoring itself is subjective, and the ranking groups are fuzzy rather than having distinct boundaries, it is wise to treat the output subjectively as well. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
David,
in my last engagement we used 5 criteria - compliance, strategic fit, landscape fit (how disruptive), resource fit and ROI. See here:
Two further points:
1. Try to get a handle on pet projects
2. the optimal portfolio is seldom the too priority projects
Thomas Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Just to comment, what @Kiron stated above is what we are starting using this years because it is a key component inside LPM (Lean Project Management), at least in the SAFe implmentation which is what we are starting using from two years ago implementing it at whole enterprise level (not IT only). Saving Changes...
