Getting The Biggest Bang For The Buck

So I had the opportunity to sit in on a colleague teaching a class in Performance Improvement.

One tool that I really liked from the class was the Impact-Effort Matrix.

To determine project worth doing, the matrix has the:

Impacts (Vertical) — Improved customer satisfaction, quality, delivery time, etc.

Effort (Horizontal) — Money, Time, etc.

The best bang for the buck are the projects in upper left (“Quick Wins”) that have a high impact or return for not a lot of effort.

In contract, the projects that are the least desirable are in the lower right (“Thankless Tasks”) that have a low impact or return but come at a high cost or lot of effort.

This is simple to do and understand and yet really helps to prioritize projects and find the best choices among them. ;-)

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)