Priority Poker

You’ll first brainstorm possible initiatives to achieve a goal. Then you’ll play poker by placing your initiatives on a 3x3 matrix to prioritize and select and organize the right initiatives to focus on.

Team effort to brainstorm all initiatives that contribute to a goal. And then prioritize it together. Put it with post-its on a 3x3 matrix (see template). Then really be selective about which ones you choose.

This exercise is in our Teambooster App, one of many tools to help your team work towards great teamwork, while working. The Teambooster App guides your team with small steps and many tools and exercises, just like a work-out, to build towards a strong team.

When to use this tool?

Whenever you don’t have your priorities clear, this one is for you. Having a dedicated session to prioritize your tasks and efforts in a playful way brings back motivation, clarity and action. The goal of this exercise is to make choices. This allows you to increase awareness about the limitations of resources, like time, which will result in better choices.

After making all the necessary choices, you’ll have clarity on deadlines, roles and also the things that are not going to be done, which frees up a lot of mental space. This works great on long-term goals like a quarter or trimester goals.

How does it work?

Step 1: Prepare and decide on the goals you want to work on.
Deciding on 3-5 main goals helps you to prioritize in the first place. Set these goals for a specific time period in which you want to achieve them (say 3 months). Prepare a few flipcharts, depending on how big you want to go. You’ll find examples of the structures of this tool in the media section.

You’ll need a flipchart for each goal where you collect all possible actions with post-its. And one extra for all other big ideas. You’ll need one flipchart for the 3x3 matrix (two axes that create nine fields).

Step 2: Brainstorm possible initiatives (actions).
Invite your team to brainstorm initiatives for each of the goals, writing down each initiative on one post-it. A useful question here is: “What initiative brings you closer to achieving this goal?”. Try to write each initiative with a clear outcome (result) to achieve.

Play by brainstorming rules: Anything goes. You can and will sort it out in the next step. It’s important to allow everything and not restrict creativity to tap into the full potential of your team. Encourage each other to think outside the box and leave the word “but” of your brainstorming session. Take around 3-5 minutes per goal.

Step 3: Play “poker” with the 3x3 matrix.
How the matrix works:

• You have the y-axis “impact” which is measured in three sections: 1, 2 and 3 stars (from low to high)

• You also have the x-axis “effort” which is measured in three sections, too: 1, 3 and 9 points. We assume that this expands exponentially due to the complexity of work, so the scale is not linear like 1, 2, 3 but exponential like 1, 3, 9.

Now each of you puts all brainstormed initiatives on the matrix map. Your goal now is to sort all initiatives into the right fields. Start with focusing on the effort axis first and rank them there. This prevents the normal bias of underestimating high-impact initiatives. Then sort them along the impact axis. Have a conversation about your effort and impact estimations. Zoom in where you disagree and ask clarity-enhancing questions.

Step 4: Agree on your next actions and what you won’t focus on.
When all initiatives are sorted, you’ll have a clear picture of where your focus should go. Decide on your next steps and who is responsible for which actions. You can always come back to your matrix map and take on new initiatives to reach your goals. It helps to note down what you decided on. This way you have a clear outcome of this session and can switch to action immediately. Just as important as it is to switch to action is to also know what you will not do (maybe the most important choices…).

What do you need to get started?

Post-Its, pens and a flipchart or something where you can visualize the 3x3 matrix to work on. If you meet online translate it to your meeting environment so that everybody can participate.

Extra tip

The biggest limited resource you’ll work with is time. You can introduce this extra dimension to the matrix map, too, by introducing a “time currency”. You can use the number of work weeks or days available on the team to choose the initiatives that you will work on. To calculate it take the full period available and subtract holidays, sick-leaves, other projects, admin work etc. Now you can use the effort axis, translate it to match your three levels there and make sure you stay within your time currency limits.

This exercise is for

• Team size: 2 to 13+

• Team development phase: Forming, storming, norming, performing

• TEAM framework: Mission

• Difficulty: average

• Duration: 30-90 min

Related Tools in teambooster.app

Eat the Frog First, Goal Horizons, Goal Rhythm.

You can find these related tools, and many more, in the Teambooster App. Go to teambooster.app, create a free account and explore if it’s something for your team as well.

Source: Exercise designed by Teambooster. Original author unknown. Practiced together with one of our clients.