If you work in a project-based environment, you may feel like one of those juggling clowns at the circus, trying to keep your ball, your baton, and your flaming torch in the air at the same time, all while maneuvering your unicycle around the ring. Focus too much on one object and you risk dropping one of the others, or even taking a tumble. Project management is a lot like this. Neglect to give one project the attention or funding it needs and the consequences of doing so can be much more serious than a dropped ball, especially when your higher-ups find out money has been wasted on an unimportant or failed project.

Organizations don’t have to manage their projects in such a circus-like manner. In fact, project prioritization and selection can help you save time and money and achieve consistent success for your company.

A dearth of facts and unbiased analysis lead executives to make poor decisions when selecting new projects or assigning resources to existing ones. The result? Unmet business goals and lost opportunities. Bad project management decisions not only cause the misuse of valuable funds, they create an environment where strategic projects take a backseat while pet projects are given higher priority.

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