Initiative Prioritization Support Tool

The Initiative Prioritization Support Tool is intended to help entrepreneurs and project teams decide which actions to focus their efforts on. Through a structured evaluation, the tool makes it possible to identify which initiatives deliver the greatest value to the project and compare them using the same criteria, avoiding decisions based solely on intuition or short-term urgencies.

Thanks to this approach, it becomes easier to determine which initiatives should be carried out in the short term and which can be scheduled for later stages, reducing the dispersion of resources on low-impact tasks.

In addition, the tool helps align the team around clear, shared priorities, supporting quarterly planning and the definition of roadmaps consistent with the project’s current stage. By structuring decisions and making the criteria used explicit, it also becomes a useful resource for communicating and justifying strategic priorities to mentors, support programmes, accelerators, or other external stakeholders.

Template sections explained in detail

The template is organised into three sheets:

1.    Initiatives

The Initiatives sheet is intended exclusively for entering descriptive information. It includes all the initiatives the project is considering developing.

For each initiative, three elements are entered:

•    Initiative name, to identify it clearly.
•    Description, briefly explaining what the action consists of.
•    Area, indicating the field it belongs to, for example marketing, sales, product, finance, or management.

An initiative can be any action relevant to the project, such as defining value proposition messages, validating a feature with customers, implementing an internal tool, or preparing a financial forecast.

2.    Prioritization

The Prioritization sheet is completed based on the initiatives previously defined. Each initiative entered in the Initiatives sheet automatically appears in this sheet for evaluation.

Each initiative is assessed using four criteria, on a numerical scale from 1 to 5, where:

• 1 = lowest value.
• 5 = highest value.

The criteria are as follows:

• Business impact: measures the degree to which the initiative contributes to the project’s objectives.
• Urgency: reflects the need to carry it out in the short term.
• Economic cost: estimates the financial resources required to carry it out.
• Operational effort: represents the time commitment and human resources required.

3.    Results

Based on the assessments in the Prioritization sheet, the tool automatically calculates a Priority Index for each initiative using the following formula:

Priority Index = (Business impact + Urgency) – (Economic cost + Operational effort)

The resulting Priority Index can range from –8 to 8. The higher the value, the higher the initiative’s relative priority.

•    5 to 8 → High relative priority
•    1 to 4 → Medium relative priority
•    ≤ 0 → Low relative priority

This calculation helps identify those initiatives that are most attractive from a strategic point of view, combining high potential value with manageable cost and effort.

Additionally, to make the results easier to interpret, the tool includes a column showing the assigned Priority Order.

The results are displayed in a bar chart showing the initiatives according to their Priority Order and Priority Index.

How to interpret the results

The results of the tool should be interpreted together, taking into account both the Priority Index obtained and the Priority Order assigned to each initiative.

The Priority Index answers the question “What strategic value does this initiative have in relation to the others?” It is a numerical value that combines business impact and urgency with economic cost and operational effort. The higher the index, the higher the initiative’s relative priority within the group analysed.

Based on this index, the tool automatically assigns a Priority Order, which answers the question “Which one should we start with?”, indicating with the value 1 the initiative that should be tackled first according to the assessment carried out.

Initiatives with higher relative priority and a better position in the ranking are candidates to be executed first, while those with lower values can be scheduled for later stages or temporarily postponed if resources are limited.

How is it used?

First, all initiatives are entered into the sheet, indicating their name, description, and area. Then, the Prioritization sheet is accessed, where the initiatives automatically appear for assessment.

Next, each initiative is scored according to business impact, urgency, economic cost, and operational effort. Once these values have been entered, in the Results sheet the tool automatically calculates the Priority Index, assigns the corresponding Priority Order, and generates the bar chart.

Use this information to decide which initiatives to execute, which to plan for later, and which to postpone, thereby supporting structured decision-making aligned with the project’s stage and priorities.

Download the template and use it to organise your initiatives, clearly identify which actions you should prioritise, and make strategic decisions in a structured and professional way.