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 favorite. 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 favorites 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 prioritization 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 Prioritization 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 prioritization 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.
