Most organizations have a formal, or at least semiformal, process to select and prioritize projects. In my organization, a steering committee is responsible for project review, selection, and prioritization. A steering committee is a group of folks comprised of senior managers and sometimes midlevel managers who represent each of the functional areas in the organization.
Here’s how our process works. The steering committee requests project ideas from the business staff prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.
A special steering committee meeting is called to review the projects, and a determination is made on each project as to whether it will be included on the upcoming list of projects for the new year. Once the no-go projects have been weeded out, the remaining projects are prioritized according to their importance and benefit to the organization. The projects are documented on an official project list, and progress is reported on the active projects at the regular monthly steering committee meetings.
In theory, it’s a great idea. In practice, it works only moderately well. Priorities can and do change throughout the year. New projects come up that weren’t originally submitted during the call for projects that must be added to the list. Reprioritization begins anew, and resource alignment and assignments are shuffled. But again, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Just be aware that organizations usually have a process to recognize and screen project requests, accept or reject those requests based on some selection criteria, and prioritize the projects based on some criteria.
Large, complex projects may be subject to further review via a feasibility study before a decision can be made to accept the project. You will recall that feasibility studies determine the viability of the project and help the company determine if the product or service of the project is marketable, profitable, safe, and doable.
What’s the criteria? Funny you should ask. Project selection criteria is an input to the project Initiation process. According to the Guide to the PMBOK, project selection criteria is concerned with the product of the project. In other words, selection criteria is concerned with what the product or service of the project will produce and how it will benefit the company. Selection criteria concerns every area of business from marketing to finance to information technology to human resources. It can be subjective or objective. Criteria for judging project selection could include financial measurements. For example, the selection criteria might dictate that projects must increase profits by a certain percentage in order to be considered. Equally, project selection criteria might include the criteria that an increase in market share or an increase in the public awareness of the company or product will be enjoyed as a result of this project. There aren’t any rules for project selection as the components of selection criteria are up to the company, steering committee, or project review committee to determine.
Predetermined selection criteria, such as mentioned above, is one aspect of project selection, but so is the individual opinion, and power, of selection committee members. Don’t underestimate the importance of the authority, political standing, and individual aspirations of selection committee members. Those committee members who happen to carry a lot of weight in company circles, so to speak, are likely to get their projects approved just on the fact that they are who they are. This is sometimes how project selection works in my organization. How about yours?