How value, effort and urgency become a priority score
The weighted formula behind every priority number, what an unscored item means, and how the portfolio quadrants are drawn.
Last updated 2026-07-22
Every improvement can be scored on three axes from 1 to 5:
- Value — how much better things are if this is done.
- Effort — how easy it is. 5 means easy, not hard.
- Urgency — how much worse things get if it waits.
The formula
Priority is a weighted blend, scaled to 10:
priority = 10 × (0.5 × value/5 + 0.3 × effort/5 + 0.2 × urgency/5)
So value 4, effort 3, urgency 4 gives 7.6, not 8.3. Value carries half the weight because a cheap change that helps nobody is still a change that helps nobody.
Unscored items
An improvement with any axis missing has no priority at all — it does not default to zero, and it does not appear in the portfolio quadrants. This is deliberate: a zero would sort it below genuinely low-value work, and the honest answer is that nobody has judged it yet.
The portfolio view
The portfolio plots value against effort and splits it into four quadrants: quick wins, major projects, fill-ins and thankless tasks. Every item in the matrix links straight to its record, so you can act on a quick win without going back to the list to find it by name.
Frequently asked questions
- What does "unscored" mean?
- At least one of the three axes has no value. An unscored improvement has no priority number and sits outside the portfolio quadrants until all three are set.
- Can I change the weights?
- Not in this version. The weights are fixed so that two workspaces in the same organisation produce comparable numbers, which is what makes a portfolio view meaningful.