Impact/Effort Analysis

The Impact/Effort Analysis is an efficient and straightforward tool for prioritizing and choosing out of many potential ideas. It is a two-by-two matrix that provides a quick visual guide to help you and your team evaluate several options against the impact gained or generated for the user and the effort and resources required to carry out and implement the idea.

The analysis steps are straightforward: assess each idea and map it onto the quadrant, reflecting its level of impact and effort. For example, solutions falling into the upper- left quadrant are those that yield the highest impact with minimum effort. The top-right quadrant ideas still deliver a high impact; however, they require more resources to be implemented.

Depending on your objectives and the specific setting you are operating in, this tool will help you cluster your ideas and select those aligned with your goal.