Imagine you are the executive director of a community-based healthcare organization.
For years, your programs have relied on dedicated staff and volunteers to deliver essential services—from chronic disease management to maternal health education. Yet as demand grows, so does the pressure on your team.
Manual processes—such as paper-based patient records, handwritten appointment logs, and limited in-person consultations—are no longer sustainable. You know that transitioning to scalable, technology-enabled solutions is essential, but the many bottlenecks in your processes make it difficult to determine where to begin.
You are juggling multiple responsibilities, overwhelmed by the sheer number of priorities competing for your attention. The challenge of managing these competing demands leaves you frustrated and uncertain about where to focus your efforts. Every issue feels critical, and every decision seems weighty.
Faced with this overwhelming complexity, your first instinct might be to tackle the most visible issue or problem, implement a shiny new technology, or simply address the loudest complaint.
But beware: your first move, driven by urgency or impulse, could be your biggest mistake.
These methods all share one key flaw: they lack a structured framework for identifying where you can achieve the biggest impact with the same resources.
Our approach to strategic prioritization urges you to begin with goals and problems first (instead of starting with solutions), using specific, carefully-chosen criteria to cut through the noise and focus on high-impact areas.
In the sections that follow, we outline key strategies for effective prioritization and introduce three practical criteria to help you identify top-priority problems and create clarity amidst the chaos.
Before diving into the heart of this piece—how to prioritize problems—it's crucial to acknowledge a fundamental prerequisite: a clear, prioritized goal or outcome.
While this piece doesn't focus on how to select or define your primary objective (this will be covered elsewhere), having one in place is essential for effective problem prioritization.
Clear goals are specific, measurable, and time-bound objectives that align with an organization's mission and vision. They provide the context and direction necessary for identifying and prioritizing the problems that stand in the way of success.