Too many initiatives, same budget? — Prioritization Canvas

Right now, priorities get set by whoever pitches hardest in the room. The Prioritization Canvas fixes that in one ninety-minute session: your whole portfolio on a single page, scored against real rules, plus an honest list of what stops. Free and ready to print.

How it works. Ninety minutes. Three steps.

Four to eight people: the committee that actually decides where resources go. Printed canvas, a marker each, and a facilitator with nothing riding on the outcome. Keep it to one session — split it across meetings and the scores get relitigated.

1. Inventory

Everything on the table, no pitching. One row per initiative, tagged with its horizon: I immediate (0–6 months), E strategic (6–24 months), T transformational (2–5 years). All of it goes in, including the zombie projects nobody ever officially killed.

2. Score

Two questions per horizon, 1 to 5 each, out of 10. Score against the variables with concrete examples — disagreements sort themselves out fast. Here's the rule that makes the whole thing work: only one initiative gets a 5, and at most two get a 4. Somebody wants a second 5? Fine. Which of the two are you dropping?

3. Cut

Three from immediate, two strategic, one transformational. Six initiatives, each with a single owner and a metric: the load a team can actually carry. Everything else goes on the stop-list, with a closing date. That list is half the point of the whole exercise.

Three rules that make it work.

1. Quotas hold. Wave through a second 5 and you've just opened the door to a third. Twenty minutes later the scoring is decoration again. The quota holds, even when it stings.

2. Each horizon, its own yardstick. A 7 in Immediate isn't competing with a 7 in Transformational. That's comparing apples to clocks. Totals stay inside their own column.

3. No stop-list, no cut. A plan with nothing stopped is just a session of good intentions. You're done when the stop-list has names and dates.

Grab it. It's free.

Download the canvas (PDF in Spanish) · The user guide, with the full playbook, can be downloaded on the page by leaving your details.

What if the quotas get negotiated away?

That's where we come in. The canvas only works when the committee can hold its own rules. And when everyone in the room has a project on the line, quotas get negotiated and the stop-list turns shy. That's exactly why the facilitator comes from outside. Book 30 minutes, no strings: lonuevo@noescomun.com.