Our client has established an enterprise risk management framework. That framework was used to prioritize the entire portfolio, which also included several megaprojects.

After we were asked to review the portfolio prioritization methodology, we noticed that it had several areas for improvement. It improperly assessed risk exposure – by adding probability and impact, not by multiplying them. The framework didn’t account for benefit realization risks either. Individually, various scores for probabilities and impact values were not proportional to the respective values.

After correcting the issue noticed above, we made sure that the prioritization happened based on tracking the reduction of risk and correctly accounted for the change in the enterprise risk, delivery risk, and benefit realization risks, as well as cost/benefit and value/risk dimensions during the assessment of the investment ideas. As a result, we created a harmonized score that proportionately ranked initiatives based on their attractiveness.