Project management prioritization

For most organizations, making decisions on project management prioritization and project selection involves estimation of project costs, value and risks. Various methods prove that setting priorities for your project becomes vital from the moment when the project requires planning. Project planning phase involves understanding the definition so that the manager of your project together with the team can clearly see project goals and objectives. Identification of project priorities allows clarifying ranking of tasks and understanding how these tasks will be executed throughout the life-cycle of your project.

To start identifying and setting priority, the project manager needs to calculate project costs, identify project value, and assess project risks. A combination of costs, value and risks creates the so-called " Project Priority Triangle ". The triangle helps make HR assignments considering importance and urgency of each task. The manager uses the triangle to define priority levels, set task priority groups, and make final job ranking with reference to costs, value and risks. The process of identifying priorities by using the triangle is a part of PM prioritization and it includes the following phases:

• Estimating costs. They consist of funding requests, including O&M costs and opportunity costs (use of equipment, raw material and any other resources) that will be used during the project course. Project prioritization software allows calculating project costs and getting accurate estimations to manage your project budget and expense.
• Estimating value. Estimating the project value is even more difficult than estimating project costs. That software helps measure benefits and value of your project. The project manager can use such software to develop project priority criteria for measuring the project value.
• Assessing project risks. Risks can be identified, measured and mitigated (or removed) by using shareware. Usually project risks are assessed in the context of project scope, requirements and deliverables. This means that the project manager should use project priority system to review and document any deviations or inconsistencies in the technical or technological foundation of your project.

When costs, value and risks of your project are identified and estimated, the project manager develops project priority matrix that consists of the three categories: Importance, Frequency and Feasibility. The priority matrix lets rank all tasks of your project by these categories, so that the project manager can plan the order of task executing. The shareware allows generating a protocol that shows priorities and HR assignments per tasks. The protocol is a short report used as a supplement to project prioritization scorecard.

VIP Task Manager is a client / server solution for managing tasks and calendars within projects. The software solution allows estimating costs, value and risks of projects to define job lists and to rank project jobs. VIP Task Manager features Custom Fields functionality to perform calculations in task lists of projects. The software supports user collaboration over LAN/Internet.