PROJECT PRIORITIZATION PROCESS.

PROJECT PRIORITIZATION PROCESS

Introduction

The document is used to develop a process to solicit, evaluate and prioritize business development projects of an enterprise of health care services. The main objective was to develop the process of prioritizing projects to be used by the executive committee of the organization to classify projects, the prioritization process is required due to the intense competition for unlimited resources and because the organization lacked a model for determine the relative importance of the proposed projects.

Problem

How does a project review committee to take decisions convincing project proposals that give priority, given the large number of proposals competing for attention, intense efforts by executives to see their pet projects get the nod?

Background

Redwood Health Services, a major provider of health services and medical plans for communities throughout California, requires solutions to this problem. The executive committee, consisting of the top of the organization, was besieged with project proposals from two steering groups. The Steering Group Product Development, evaluates the proposed products, and the other, the Steering Group Process Improvement, evaluates proposed processes and systems to support and implement products.

The executive committee had no standards to give priority to projects in any coherent way, and found unjustified spending amounts of time trying to determine what constitutes a project at the corporate level, compared to a lower-level project.

To do seven different steps are generated:

1. Identify and empower the right working committee

Contacted the president of one of the steering groups, the executive committee was proposed to appoint a working committee composed of two members of the board and two members of each subgroup. This team has the authority and responsibility to develop a new system of project review. It takes at least one member from each of the teams to contituir a qourum for decision-making.

2. Brainstorm and Categorize Criteria

In a series of meetings, will be held a brainstorming session with all relevant criteria was to be included in the evaluation of projects to enterprise level, then the criteria are grouped into areas: Strategy, Cost / Benefit, Risk, relations with interest groups and Impact on the Corporation.

3. Develop Scoring Models

Four models to the scoring criteria were developed:

- Model 1 uses a simple one-dimensional grid score 1-5, where 3 is a neutral, 5 is a very positive and very negative 1 rating.

- Model 2 uses a method score of 3 or 4 points, 3 or 4 is a very positive and 1 score is neutral.

- Model 3, uses a two-dimensional array.

- Model 4 uses a financial model to help determine the annual rate of return

4. Identify a Short of Wartershed Criteria

Develop a system to prevent projects that do not generate revenue did not reach the executive committee for action. To do an assessment phase and a phase of prioritization was developed.

5. Develop a Weighting Scheme for the Criteria List

Provide a total relative weight of criteria groups and then distribute weights to individual criteria.

6. Submit Two Proposal for a Trial Run through the New Procedure

Was determined to put together a good system instead of a perfect system, because he was convinced that the system required refinement over time. To test the validity of the system two projects were presented, with the aim of finding the ambiguities, contradictions and errors in the new system.

7. Develop a Project Solicitation Guidelines Document for Project Sponsors

The last step was to develop a comprehensive set of guidelines for teaching the sponsors how to present proposals. The guidelines provide a standard format for all future project proposals.

Six-Month Post-Implementation

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