By Jason Ames, PMP

Continuing our discussion from the previous blog article, we are now ready to address success factor number 4:

Determining which Projects to Start and When to Shut Them Down

Selecting the right projects is as important, if not more important, to your success than executing projects efficiently. Your chosen projects should support your firm’s strategic direction and contribute to the bottom line. Once projects have been selected, they need to be ranked against each other to determine which projects are the most critical and who will win when resource conflicts exist. Just selecting and ranking projects is not enough; projects must be continually reevaluated to ensure that they still meet your organization’s strategic direction. Over time priorities change, new opportunities arise, and project ROI decreases, so you need to know how changes affect your project portfolio and where to put your resources.

Ask yourself the following questions
• How does your organization select projects?
• Do projects match the organization’s strategic direction?
• What projects are most critical?
• What happens when priorities change?
• How do we handle resource conflicts?
• What can you postpone or cancel?

If you can’t answer these questions, or there isn’t a formal policy, your firm is probably wasting money by executing the wrong projects.