Deciding What To Do Next: Consider Your In-House Skills

If your organization is going through yearly planning, deciding what to do next is top of mind.

While there are many ways to decide what to do next from a projected revenue/cost point of view, it still doesn't mean it's easy to pick your next set of funded projects.

Portfolio planning is dear to my heart as a Product Management leader for much of my career.

There isn't only one way to slice a portfolio (you need multiple), but one way I like to slice things is how well you understand a major project versus its reward, effort, and risk:

Type A: Low-Medium Reward / Well Understood = Low-Hanging Fruit

Type B: Low-Medium Reward / Not Well Understood = Research Projects (you could have gems in here)

Type C: High Reward / Well Understood: Prioritize soon based on the size of effort needed.

Type D: High Reward / Not Well Understood: Could Be Risky and Important

It's these "Type D" projects that I'm speaking about today. Sometimes people lump Type C projects and Type D projects together without considering the organization's current capabilities. These are often projects involving new business models.

To gain the value of a Type D project often involves research, bringing in external partners, making critical new hires, or clearing the decks of key employees to give them runway to implement and learn a new business model.

You see, if you have these Type A projects, they are generally the "no-brainer" projects. Those are your "singles and doubles" projects to use a baseball analogy.

There are two critical mistakes I see companies make when they are scheduling Type D projects.

First, personnel. The type of person tackling these types of projects needs to be a builder and someone who is not afraid to tinker and disrupt. If you put someone vested in the current system on a disruptive project, they may need more patience to see it through.

At times, external resources can help coach and accelerate learning in an organization -- particularly in an unfamiliar space.

Second, quantity. If you don't monitor how many Type D projects you take on, you might unwittingly take on too many.

Why this is bad? Ultimately because you are working on too many risky projects that may not pan out and potentially ignoring a lot of the easier wins that you should be making monthly to consistently improve your customer experience.