Prioritize contents within a scenario

Prioritizing the contents within a scenario helps your organization make optimal allocation of the budget and resources.

Overview

A prioritized contents list helps your organization to make optimal allocation of budget and resources. The list is structured with the most important content at the top, while less important contents are ranked lower. Prioritizing the contents within a scenario may include the following actions:

  • Moving contents into the scenario.
  • Moving contents out of the scenario.
  • Assigning ranks to the contents.

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Considerations before prioritizing

Consider the following factors before prioritizing the contents:

Factor

Description
The content's strategic theme or business objective

See Strategic planning.
The content's financial metrics, such as forecast cost and forecast benefit

Such financial data provides insight on demand versus capacity, and whether a content is worth investing.

The Strategic Prioritization View provides quick access to the financial metrics in the content list table.

To display the financial metrics you are concerned about:

  1. At the top-right corner of the content ranking table, click Choose columns.
  2. Select the desired columns to display.
Dependencies between contents

If a content is to be invested, its predecessor content is supposed to be invested too.

For details, see View dependencies.

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Add contents to a scenario

Available in 23.4 and later versions

When you create a what-if scenario for a portfolio, the entities that meet the following requirements are automatically included in the scenario:

  • Have both start and end dates specified
  • The time periods fall in the scenario's time range.

You can manually add other entities you want into the scenario.

To manually add contents to a scenario:

  1. From the What-if Analysis page, click the scenario to open the details page.

  2. Select a layout template with Board View, Gantt View, or Rank View.

    Tip: To add content to a scenario, you need a layout template with Gantt View, Board View, or Rank View component type. Predefined templates, Planning Board Quarterly View, Strategic Planning Gantt View, and Strategic Prioritization View have the required component type. Alternatively, you can include the required component type in your customized layout template.

  3. Expand the Candidates pane on the right to display the portfolio entities that are not included in the corresponding scenario.

  4. To add an entity to the scenario, from the Candidates pane, select the target entity and drag it onto the Board, Gantt, or rank chart.

    The entity is displayed during the first time period within the scenario's time range.

  5. To adjust the entity's duration:

    1. Select a layout template with Gantt View.
    2. Hover over the left or right end of the Gantt chart until the icon appears.

    3. Click and drag the icon to the desired time period on the timeline to adjust the entity's duration.

  6. To reschedule the entity's period while maintaining its original duration:

    1. Select a layout template with Gantt View or Board View.
    2. Move the entity's Gantt chart or card to left or right to change the start and end periods.

  7. To restore an entity back to the Candidates list:

    1. Click the entity, the Restore to Candidates button appears.
    2. Click Restore to Candidates.

  8. Repeat these steps as necessary to add all the desired contents to the scenario.

  9. Click Save and Apply to apply the changes made to the scenario.

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Move contents out of a scenario

If you do not plan to start or continue a portfolio content, move the content out of the scenario. The budget and resources will not be allocated to it.

To move a content out of a scenario:

  1. From the What-if Analysis page, click the scenario to open the details page.

  2. At the top-right of the scenario details page, select a layout template with the Ranking View content view type.

    Tip: You can use the predefined Strategic Prioritization View layout template, which includes the Ranking View content view type. Alternatively, you can incorporate the Ranking View content view type into your customized layout template. For details, see Configure content view types in a template.

  3. To move a content out of a scenario, from the content table, click the content and drag it below the content list table.

    A new table with grey background appears below the content table. It lists the moved-out contents.

  4. To return content back to a scenario, from the moved-out content table, click the content and drag it back to the content table.

  5. To save the changes made to the scenario, click Save.

  6. To discard the changes made to the scenario, click Restore.

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View dependencies

Available in 23.4 and later versions

Understand the dependencies between scenario contents before prioritizing. If a content is to be invested, its predecessor content is supposed to be invested as well.

Overview of dependencies

Scenario contents can have relationships with each other. The relationships between the entities include informational, predecessor, successor, and Finish/Finish predecessor relationships. An entity's relationships with other entities are defined in the References section of the entity. For details, see Add references to requests. These relationships are considered dependencies in scenario.

To view dependencies between scenario contents:

  1. Open the scenario details page and select a layout template with the Board View, Gantt View, or Ranking View content view type.

  2. To view dependencies in a layout template with the Board View or Gantt View content view type, turn on the Dependencies toggle.

    Scenario contents having dependency relationships with each other are connected by blue lines, and a dependency icon appears on their card or Gantt.

  3. To view dependencies in a layout template with the Ranking View content view type, refer to the Has Dependency column. Scenario contents having dependency relationships are marked by a dependency icon in the Has Dependency column.

  4. Click the dependency icon to open the Dependency map to view dependencies details.

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Add dependencies

Available in 23.4 and later versions

If you discover missing dependencies in scenario contents, you can add them. You can add a dependency:

  • From a project or proposal to a program, project, or proposal
  • From a program to a project or proposal

The dependencies added between the contents represent an informational relationship. For details, see References and relationships.

Add dependencies

Follow the steps below to add a new dependency:

Add dependency from Details
Board View
  1. Turn on the Dependencies toggle.
  2. Turn on the Add Dependency toggle.
  3. Click the source content for which to add a dependency. The card is highlighted in green.

  4. Select a target content to create a dependency. Their cards are linked by a blue dotted line.

  5. To remove a newly added dependency, click the blue dotted line and then click Restore.
  6. Click Save to save the changes made to the scenario.
Gantt View
  1. Turn on the Dependencies toggle.
  2. Turn on the Add Dependency toggle.
  3. Hover over a source content, a circle appears before or after its Gantt.

  4. Click and drag the circle to a target content to create a dependency. Their Gantts are linked by a blue dotted line.

    Note: If a content spans multiple time periods, the line connects the first card in the board.

  5. To remove a newly added dependency, click the blue dotted line, and then click Restore.
  6. Click Save to save the changes made to the scenario.
Ranking View
  1. Locate the source content.
  2. Double-click the Dependency column and select one or more target contents.
  3. To remove a newly added dependency, double-click the Dependency column and deselect the target contents.
  4. Click Save to save the changes made to the scenario.

Apply new dependencies to contents

You can apply the newly added dependencies to the contents.

To apply the dependencies to the contents:

  1. At the top-right of the page, click Apply.

  2. The Dependencies section in the Apply preview for scenario page displays the newly added dependencies for the portfolio contents.

  3. Review the new dependencies and select the portfolio contents where you want to add the dependencies.

  4. Click Apply at the top-right of the page.

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Assign priorities to contents

Contents in the scenario details page are by default listed in the alphabetical order of content names.

To adjust the ranking of a content:

  1. Open a scenario details page, and select a layout template with the Ranking View content view type.

  2. In the content table, click the Rank column to make sure the contents are sorted by rank.

  3. Drag and drop the content to the target location in the table. The ranking of the content is updated.

  4. Click Save to save the changes.

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Next steps: