You're faced with limited resources for multiple projects. How do you decide which ones to prioritize?

When faced with limited resources for multiple projects, it is important to prioritize based on several factors such as strategic importance: Identify which projects align most closely with the overall goals and objectives of the organization and prioritize projects that will have the biggest impact on the success of the business. Consider the deadlines for each project and prioritize those that are time-sensitive or have fixed delivery dates. Prioritize projects that can be completed with the available resources. Prioritize projects that have the highest potential for generating revenue or other benefits. Prioritize projects that are less risky or have fewer dependencies on other projects.

Define a Prioritization framework and assess the various factors for each project. The framework can help one to make more objective and informed decisions about which projects to prioritize. Some of the factors to consider are: (1) Strategic alignment (2) Urgency (3) Impact (4) Resource requirements (5) Risk (6) Business growth (7) Market trends.

Una buen opción es desarrollar una matriz de prioridad y asignar los recursos al proyecto que mayor impacto tenga en el bottom line.

The "squeaky wheel" often gets the grease, meaning the project with the most vocal stakeholders can overshadow others with greater potential impact. Don't fall into this trap. A project's impact isn't just about revenue or immediate visibility. Consider long-term strategic alignment, potential for innovation, and even the impact on team morale. Sometimes, a smaller project that excites your team can be a more strategic investment than a larger one that drains their energy. Tip: Create an impact assessment framework that goes beyond the obvious metrics. Factor in less tangible benefits like knowledge gain, skill development, or potential for future spin-offs.

When bringing up limited resources, these are the immediate thoughts that come to mind: What are the factors causing these resources limitations? List them down, filter the low hanging fruits, ones that cause limited disruptions but increase efficiency. Scale the higher hanging fruits,changes are important but pivotal changes executed too quickly tends to backfire more often than not. Next structure things in a simple way which both your management and your team can digest easily. Enforcement to changes propose go a long way. Lastly, after applying these policies/principles/structures always evaluate. Are the impacts desireable? how should these be finetune? Feedback from the team often helps to cover angles which you might miss.

Evaluation and identification of resources are key to the success of a project. Once the work prioritisation is done, organise a resource planning and involve other stakeholders if needed. Evaluate the timeline, skill sets, manpower, tools, budget, etc as part of the resource planning. Identify the right set of resources for individual projects keeping the timeline, skill sets and budget in mind. Just make sure, you are executing each project as per it's planning.

The "do more with less" mentality is a trap. I've seen teams stretched thin trying to juggle multiple projects with limited resources, resulting in burnout and subpar outcomes. Instead, be realistic about your resource constraints. Identify the projects that align with your available talent, budget, and technology. Tip: Conduct a resource inventory to understand your team's strengths, weaknesses, and availability. This will help you match projects with the right resources and avoid overcommitting.

Risk assessment is often presented as a risk avoidance exercise. This is a flawed approach. In my experience, the projects with the highest potential for payoff also carry the highest risk. By solely focusing on risk mitigation, you might miss out on groundbreaking opportunities. Tip: Instead of just identifying risks, also quantify them. Assign probabilities and potential impact to each risk. This will allow you to make more informed decisions about which risks are worth taking.

Depending on the size of the organisation, risk management processes precede project management. Having identified the risks associated with all the projects involved it is important to determine to what extent the projects concerned are interrelated or interdependent. This will assist in determining which project should be a priority.