Your scoring is done. You have 15 ideas that cleared the threshold. You have budget and bandwidth for three. Everyone on your review team has a different favourite. And leadership wants to see the shortlist by Friday.
This is the moment most programs get stuck. Not because the ideas are bad, but because nobody has a structured way to make a final call when multiple good options are competing.
Why Letting Leadership Pick Is a Trap
The instinct in this situation is to escalate. Bring the top 15 to leadership and let them choose. It feels like the right thing to do: it defers to authority, it gets more buy-in, it spreads the responsibility.
The problem is that leadership picking favourites without structure almost always results in the most politically visible ideas winning rather than the most impactful ones. Senior leaders are not closer to the problem than the people who generated the ideas. They are often further away. Giving them an unstructured list and asking them to choose is outsourcing a decision they are not well positioned to make.
A better approach is to bring leadership a structured recommendation: here are our top 3, here is why, here is what it would take to act on each one. That is a much more productive conversation than here are 15 ideas, which ones do you like?
The Start, Stop, Continue, Explore Framework
Before making final prioritisation decisions, it helps to place each idea in a broader context using four categories:
Start: We are not doing this yet and we should be. This idea represents something genuinely new for us.
Stop: This idea is proposing we stop doing something that is not working. It frees up resources or removes friction.
Continue and improve: This idea is about doing something we are already doing, but better. Incremental improvement with a clear path.
Explore: We are not ready to commit to this idea yet, but it deserves more investigation. Assign someone to learn more before the next decision point.
Most top-10 idea lists benefit from a mix of all four categories. A portfolio made up entirely of Start ideas is exciting but hard to resource. A portfolio made up entirely of Continue ideas is safe but unlikely to produce meaningful change. The framework makes this visible.
The 90-Minute Prioritisation Session
This session works for a group of 3 to 8 people reviewing 5 to 15 strong ideas. You will need: a shared list of the top ideas with their scores, someone to facilitate (ideally not the person with the most stake in the outcome), and a decision-making authority in the room.
Minutes 0 to 10: Set the context
Review the campaign objective and the constraints. What were you trying to solve? What resources are realistically available? What must be done by when? This resets everyone's frame before you start discussing individual ideas.
Minutes 10 to 40: Rapid round
Go through each idea in 2 to 3 minutes. One person gives a brief summary. The group uses a simple thumbs up, thumbs sideways, or thumbs down to indicate initial instinct. No discussion at this stage. You are mapping the landscape, not debating.
Minutes 40 to 70: Discuss the contested ones
Focus discussion only on the ideas where the group is split. Ideas with unanimous thumbs up or unanimous thumbs down do not need extended discussion. The contested ones are where the conversation matters.
Minutes 70 to 80: Make the call
The decision-making authority in the room makes the call on the final shortlist. Not a vote. Not a consensus. A decision, made by the person accountable for the outcome. Others can note disagreement, but the decision gets made in the room.
Minutes 80 to 90: Document and assign ownership
For each idea on the shortlist: who owns moving it forward? What is the next concrete step? What is the deadline for that step? Without these three things, a prioritisation session produces a list that goes nowhere.
How to Explain Decisions to People Whose Ideas Did Not Make It
The most important thing you can communicate to people whose ideas were not selected is the actual reason, not a softened version of it.
Not a fit with current priorities is a real reason. We do not have the resources to implement this right now is a real reason. This addresses a real problem but there are two other ideas that address a bigger version of the same problem with more impact is a real reason. People can accept all of these if you say them directly.
What people cannot accept is silence, vague platitudes about appreciating the contribution, or finding out through the grapevine that their idea was dismissed without discussion. The investment in honest, specific feedback pays back every time you run another campaign.
Balancing Speed and Rigour in Prioritisation
Triaging ideas quickly does not mean making bad decisions. It means making decisions with the information available and the time allowed. A 90-minute session is tight, but it is enough if you are disciplined about focus. The key is separating rapid assessment (thumbs up/down) from deep discussion (only on contested ideas). This two-stage approach lets you move fast while still being thoughtful about the close calls.
Common Mistakes in Idea Prioritisation
The first mistake is treating all ideas as equally important and then trying to compare them directly without a framework. "Is idea A better than idea B?" is hard to answer. "Does idea A fit our Start/Stop/Continue/Explore categories better than idea B?" is easier. Use the framework.
The second mistake is letting the loudest voices in the room win. If you have a dominated group discussion where three people make all the points and 12 people stay silent, you are not getting full input. The rapid round (thumbs up/sideways/down) forces everyone to signal their view without discussion. Do not skip that stage.
The third mistake is confusing votes with decisions. Voting sounds democratic but it often produces committee thinking where nobody feels accountable. A clear decision by one person (the decision authority) is faster and creates accountability. That person can solicit input, but they make the call.
FAQ: Common Questions About Prioritisation
What if we use the Start/Stop/Continue/Explore framework and end up with too many in one category?
That is valuable diagnostic information. If you have 12 ideas in the Continue category and none in the Start category, that tells you something about your innovation challenge framing or your audience. You might not be inviting people who think beyond incremental improvements. That is worth investigating for your next campaign.
Should we involve the original idea submitters in the prioritisation discussion?
Sometimes. If an idea submitter can add context that the evaluators lack (how much effort would this take, what is the full problem the idea is trying to solve), that is valuable. If they are just advocating for their idea, it creates bias. Decide based on what information you need, not on principle.
What if the highest-scoring ideas are not the ones the decision-maker wants to pick?
Then you have a conversation about why the scoring criteria did not surface the ideas that matter most. Maybe the scoring criteria need to change. Maybe the evaluators misapplied them. Maybe the decision-maker has context the evaluators did not have. Have that conversation explicitly, not implicitly. Do not let the decision-maker just override the score without explaining why.
Related Guides
- The Idea Scoring Scorecard: 3 Models for Different Situations
- How to Triage 100+ Ideas in 2 Hours
- The 4 Best Methods To Evaluate Ideas For Your Innovation Pipeline [+Free Templates]
- How to Measure Your Innovation Program Without Lying to Yourself
→ See our full comparison of the 10 best idea management tools
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