Anything can be accomplished in business if you have enough time, money, people and energy. Unfortunately, there are too many opportunities and too few resources and if you go after too many you will fail at some of them – not necessarily the least important.
The inability to decide which opportunities to pursue all too often leads to a lack of focus and I have seen a number of businesses that have pursued costly, inappropriate opportunities at the expense of their core business.
A good way to evaluate competing opportunities is to develop a spreadsheet listing all opportunities you are considering. Then add the following columns in the following order.
- Revenue
- Profit
- Desire
- Sub Total
- Months
- Cost
- Risk
- Sub Total
Circulate the spreadsheet template to all those involved in the decision and ask them to rank items 1, 2, 5 and 6 numerically and 3 and 7 subjectively on a scale of 1-10 where 1 is low and 10 high.
When the results come in, you need to express them all on a consistent scale. To do this, create a numerical value for items 1, 2, 5 and 6 using a 1 - 10 scale and reassign that value for each answer. Then add up all the values, subtract sub total 2 from sub total 1 and reorder based upon the total score.
The process usually requires reiteration and the weighting of the relative values may require “tweaking” for different industries. Even if the process does not produce a “result”, it certainly gives you a much better understanding of the dynamics involved. It is never a waste of time and can produce some very real insights.
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