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Prioritize the Investments

An important part of managing a portfolio is understanding the relative priorities of investments by ranking them. The product provides an out-of-the box Waterlines view that allows you to view and rank your investments in a portfolio.

When you first access the Waterlines view, investments are prioritized based on the following criteria:

• Approval status. Investments are sorted first by their approval status. The approved investments are ranked higher than unapproved investments and appear at the top of the list.
• Finish date. Investments are sorted next by their finish dates. Investments with a more recent finish date are ranked higher than investments with a later finish date.

The approved investments with the most recent finish date sort to the top of the list. The unapproved investments with later finish dates sort to the bottom.

You can manually rank investments or set up rule-based ranking, which is based on the following deciding factors:

• Size of your revenue
• Impact of the identified risks on your business

Manually Ranking Investments

To prepare to rank investments manually on the Waterlines view, consider the following factors:

• Size of the organization. If your organization is relatively small and people generally understand their priorities, creating ranking rules for prioritization is not a good investment.
• Number of investments. If the number of investments is relatively small, it is easier to rank them manually.
• Business need. If there are no preset guidelines for ranking investments and it is done on a case-by-case basis, then manual ranking is a better option.

Setting Up Rule-Based Ranking

To prepare to set up ranking rules for investments by which to prioritize them on the Waterlines view, consider the following factors:

• The investment attributes that determine the ranking criteria for your investments (for example, project status, ROI, goal).
• The ranking logic for each key attribute. For example, If attribute "ROI" equals "20 percent" then move the project to top of the list.
• An overall weighted ranking for each investment attribute. For example, to apply relatively higher importance to a specific investment attribute, assign a greater weight to it compared to the other attributes.