The Ultimate Guide to Using the Impact Effort Matrix Template for Prioritization

Prioritizing tasks using a simple matrix template can help you focus your time and resources. This comprehensive article explains how to use the impact effort matrix to make better decisions and prioritize work.

What Is the Impact Effort Matrix and Why Use It?

The impact effort matrix, also commonly called the priority matrix or effort/impact matrix, is a versatile decision-making tool used to prioritize tasks, projects, and other work items based on two key factors:

• The effort required to complete the task

• The potential impact or value it will deliver

Using this simple 2x2 matrix template provides an structured, logical way to quickly identify which tasks and projects you should focus on first to make the most of your team's limited time and resources.

How the Impact Effort Matrix Helps Prioritization

The impact effort matrix is a prioritization model that helps teams visualize all their proposed work on a 2x2 grid quadrant, with effort on one axis and impact on the other. This clear visualization makes it easy to see which tasks deserve more attention and resources versus those that can be deferred, delegated, or dropped.

Specifically, the matrix helps teams gain alignment on:

• Quick win opportunities - High impact but low effort tasks that can be tackled immediately for maximum benefit. These are easy ways to create value quickly.

• Major initiatives - High impact and high effort projects that are strategic priorities. These require significant investment and planning.

• Trivial work - Low impact, low effort tasks that aren't worth spending cycles on right now. Defer or delegate these.

• Misguided efforts - Low impact but high effort tasks that may require reconsideration before investing time and resources.

This model provides clarity on priorities and facilitates discussions on the best use of resources and capacity to drive results. Teams can align on which high-return activities they should focus on versus low-value efforts to ignore or down-prioritize.

Common Uses and Applications

The impact/effort prioritization matrix has many applications across teams, projects, and tasks:

• Product management - Prioritizing feature requests and enhancements for engineering teams. Helps identify high-value features versus complex requests.

• Project management - Creating priority lists of milestones, tasks, and action items on projects. Surfaces critical vs. trivial tasks.

• Software development - Prioritizing user stories, bugs, tech debt, and tasks in agile dev sprints. Enables data-driven decisions.

• Marketing - Evaluating and prioritizing marketing initiatives and campaigns based on return on investment and resources required.

• Personal task management - Helping individuals focus on high-impact personal goals and tasks over busywork.

Any scenario where you need to sequence various tasks and make the most of limited time and resources, the impact effort matrix delivers value.

Origins and History

The impact/effort matrix has its origins in the broader prioritization framework and approach called the Eisenhower Method or Eisenhower Matrix, named after President Dwight Eisenhower.

As the story goes, Eisenhower was frustrated trying to manage his overwhelming workload. One version says he asked his chief of staff for help. Another credits Eisenhower himself with developing the approach.

Either way, the key insight was to evaluate tasks based on importance and urgency. Eisenhower divided tasks into four quadrants:

• Important and urgent

• Important but not urgent 

• Not important but urgent

• Not important and not urgent

This evolved into the common 2x2 matrix looking at impact and effort. Low urgency tasks became low effort ones while unimportant tasks were considered low impact.

Various versions of the Eisenhower Matrix, Priority Matrix, and Impact/Effort Matrix are used today across many contexts from military strategy to workplace task management.

Key Benefits of the Impact Effort Matrix

There are many benefits that make the impact effort matrix a useful prioritization tool:

• Provides clarity - Clearly highlights priorities and surfaces invisible assumptions and disagreements about value and effort.

• Creates focus - Builds alignment on the vital few priorities to pursue first. Avoid wasted effort on low-impact tasks.

• Facilitates discussion - Provides a neutral structure for debating priorities and making decisions as a team.

• Quantifies gut feel - Introduces simple data points with impact and effort scoring to back up assumptions.

• Easy to implement - Does not require special tools or extensive training. A whiteboard and sticky notes can be enough.

• Flexible - Can be applied at the big picture goal level or task level day-to-day prioritization.

For both individuals and teams, the impact effort matrix delivers a lightweight but logical framework for deciding where to focus time and resources to create maximum value.

Creating an Impact Effort Matrix Template

To start using the impact effort matrix, you first need to create a simple template or board for plotting priorities and tasks. Here are some tips on building your own impact effort matrix:

Choose a Tool or Format

The core impact effort matrix is just a 2x2 quadrant grid. The basic template can be created in multiple ways:

• Physical board - Draw a large grid on a whiteboard or post paper on a wall. Use sticky notes to plot tasks.

• Spreadsheet - Create a matrix using Excel or Google Sheets with task fields. This allows saving, sorting, and updating easily.

• Online boards - Digital whiteboarding tools like Miro, Mural, and Milanote allow virtual sticky notes and templates.

• PM software boards - Built-in board views in project/product management systems like Jira, Asana, and Trello.

Choose the format that best fits your needs for portability, collaboration, and integration with existing tools.

Label the Axes

Be sure to clearly label the vertical axis "Effort" and horizontal axis "Impact". This sets up the quadrant mapping:

• High Effort, High Impact (top right)

• Low Effort, High Impact (top left)

• Low Effort, Low Impact (bottom left)

• High Effort, Low Impact (bottom right)

Having clear axes is key so anyone looking at the matrix understands the criteria.

Define Metrics

Create simple scales for measuring effort and impact, such as:

• Effort: Low (1-3), Medium (4-6), High (7-10)

• Impact: Low (1-3), Medium (4-6), High (7-10)

You can use story points, dollar values, or any numeric scale that works for your context. Keep it simple.

Populate With Tasks

Come up with an initial list of key tasks, projects, or goals to plot on the matrix. Capture these as sticky notes, rows on a spreadsheet, or digital cards depending on your format.

Now you have a basic impact effort matrix ready for prioritizing!

Tips for Effective Matrices

Here are some tips for creating impact effort matrices that are clear, useful, and sustained:

• Keep it simple - Avoid complex criteria. Focus just on level of effort and impact.

• Use together - Have team members collaborate on population and scoring tasks. Gets buy-in.

• Make it visible - Print it large or display digital version so it is a constant reminder.

• Limit work in progress - Make sure to limit tasks in progress based on capacity. Stay realistic.

• Revisit often - Set reminders to reassess and reprioritize regularly as new tasks emerge.

How to Use the Matrix for Prioritization

Once your impact effort matrix is set up, here are some best practices for using it to clarify priorities and focus efforts on what matters most:

Start with High-Impact, Low-Effort Items

The top left quadrant contains tasks that are quick wins - they have an outsized impact but require little effort to complete. This is the natural starting point. Knock out these high-value, low-hanging fruit tasks first.

Examples could include:

• Short standalone projects

• Simple feature requests

• Maintenance tasks like tech debt backlog

• Easy errors and bugs to fix

Getting some quick wins builds momentum and frees up capacity for bigger efforts.

Move Next to High-Impact, High-Effort Initiatives

The top right quadrant is for major projects and strategic initiatives that require significant effort but deliver major impact and value.

With bandwidth created from completing quick wins, you can move focus and resources to these high-effort, high-impact initiatives. These likely need dedicated teams and extensive planning.

Examples include:

• Multi-phase transformations 

• Large platform upgrades

• New product development

• Business-critical programs

Making progress on vital projects should take priority once quick wins are addressed.

Defer Low Priority Items Until Later

The bottom left quadrant contains tasks that are low effort but also have minimal impact. These likely represent distractions, trivial tasks, and busywork.

Defer these to the bottom of priority lists, or delegate them to others if possible. Only tackle items here once all higher value work is done. Reflect regularly on whether these tasks are still relevant and valuable.

Examples:

• Boring admin work 

• Tedious tasks

• Unimportant emails

• Minor system tweaks and fixes

Keeping low-value efforts in check prevents wasting time on activities that contribute little to key results.

Critically Evaluate Low-Impact, High-Effort Work

Tasks that require major effort but have low impact (bottom right quadrant) are ones to especially scrutinize.

Take time to re-validate if these efforts are truly worth the investment needed. Often there are assumptions here that need revisiting about value and approach.

Examples:

• Initiatives losing momentum

• Complex features with low ROI

• Spec work lacking customer validation

• Major rework with little gain

Keeping urgency on assessing these misaligned efforts prevents going down rabbit holes.

Develop an Action Plan

Turn prioritization decisions into clear next steps by developing an action plan:

• What tasks will be worked on in what sequence and by who?

• How will progress be tracked?

• When will the matrix be revisited to reassess?

Document plans to lock in decisions and ensure follow-through on the vital few priorities.

Revisit Frequently

Review your impact effort matrix at least every 1-2 weeks to tie decisions to work streams. As new tasks and priorities emerge, keep the matrix up to date and make adjustments.

Regular revisiting ensures it stays dynamic and drives focus, rather than becoming quickly outdated shelfware. Maintain it as the single source of truth.

Impact Effort Matrix Examples

The simple 2x2 matrix model can be tailored and applied to drive priority and focus in many scenarios. Here are some examples across different teams and use cases:

Product Management Prioritization

Product managers often juggle multiple feature requests from customers and internal stakeholders. This can make it hard to discern where engineering resources should be focused.

By mapping proposed features and enhancements on an impact effort matrix, it becomes easy to see which requests should get priority based on effort required and business value.

For example:

High Value, Low Effort

• Fixing critical customer-impacting bugs

• Small focused features with clear ROI

High Value, High Effort

• Large platform upgrades

• New capability modules

Low Value, Low Effort

• Superficial UI changes

• Niche minor features

Low Value, High Effort

• Major reworks with unclear ROI

• "Nice to have" features

Having the impact effort matrix visible keeps teams focused on delivering value, not just sticking to the roadmap.

Software Development Prioritization

Agile software teams can leverage the impact effort matrix to visualize and prioritize user stories and development tasks in each sprint.

For example:

High Value, Low Effort

• Fixing simple UI bugs

• Small focused enhancements

High Value, High Effort

• Core infrastructure upgrades

• Major new feature builds

Low Value, Low Effort

• Superficial UI tweaks

• Minor refactors

Low Value, High Effort

• Rebuilding older legacy features

• Technical debt without customer impact

This gives dev teams data points to focus engineering time on the key stories that move the needle while avoiding rabbit holes and churn.

Marketing Campaign Prioritization

Marketing teams can use the impact/effort matrix to prioritize campaigns and initiatives for greatest return on investment (ROI).

For example:

High Value, Low Effort

• Refreshing existing top-performing campaigns

• Updating messaging for high-click content

High Value, High Effort

• Developing new content for high-intent personas

• Targeting untapped high-value segments

Low Value, Low Effort

• Small tweaks to poor-performing campaigns

• Superficial content updates

Low Value, High Effort

• Overhauling poorly performing campaigns

• Major revamps of outdated content

This helps marketers focus energy and budget on amplification that delivers results rather than wasting resources.

Personal Goal Prioritization

Even for personal goal setting and task management, the impact effort matrix can provide helpful clarity.

For example:

High Value, Low Effort 

• Scheduling annual checkups

• Weekly meal prep

High Value, High Effort  

• Completing an advanced certification

• Launching a side business

Low Value, Low Effort

• Mindless browsing 

• Chores

Low Value, High Effort

• Learning new skills with no application

• Major house remodeling

This perspective helps focus energy on quick wins and big life goals versus distractions on trivial tasks.

Key Takeaways and Recommendations

The impact effort matrix is an invaluable tool for prioritizing tasks, projects, and other work to maximize focus and results. Here are some key tips:

• Involve your team - Get buy-in by collaborating on populating and scoring the matrix.

• Start with quick wins - Build momentum by focusing first on high-value, low-effort tasks.

• Prioritize vital few - Focus resources on the truly critical few priorities in the top quadrants.

• Limit work in progress - Don't overload capacity - manage flow of work.

• Revisit regularly - Maintain a living board that is revisited and updated frequently.

• Rethink the bottom right - Tasks here are a red flag - critically evaluate value vs. effort.

• Develop action plans - Translate priorities into clear ownership and next steps.

With a little diligence, your team can implement this proven but underutilized model to bring focus and clarity to priority setting. Try out an impact effort matrix on your next project or sprint to see firsthand the value.

What tips do you have for getting the most from an impact/effort matrix? What challenges have you faced in adopting this approach? Please share your experiences and advice in the comments below!