We chatted because I've been feeling swamped by the number of project requests that we have in place, and our intake process (which is constant and on-going). Our process, by comparison, is in stark contrast with the campus budget process, which happens once per year and takes about 6 months to complete.
Some takeaways:
Split up really big stuff from really small stuff (my team sometimes gets mired in the volume of smallish requests)
Re-think how we define "small stuff" and "big stuff". We have a rubric that we use to make that determination (for workflow purposes), but it may be better to slice and dice differently. For example, "big" might mean $100K+ in actual spend, small might be $25K or more or 120 hrs of effort. Most of our projects don't fit either of those criteria.
Number of projects in the portfolio. We have ~60 projects right now, but historically it's been 35-40 on average per month. Are we doing too much?
Consider postponing more nebulous or complex requests for 90-120 days for further review & evaluation, as necessary.
Have a defined "Top 5" or "Top 10" projects for a certain period of time (3 months? 6 months? 12 months?), and use that Top XX list to drive most conversations about priority.
Consider having a more frequent meeting with an advisory group of key stakeholders. We have a IT policy & planning committee to advise our VP IT/CIO but that group meets less frequently and is perhaps too high-level (and too busy) for regular portfolio review.
Consider looking at the distribution of projects across divisions (and within IT) and putting some on hold if there is one division (or functional area, etc) that is over-represented.
The conversation also reminded me of the importance of always trying to say "yes", but also sometimes "yes but not right now".
