Chapter News

In our recent webinar, Suzan Haenen explored why prioritization is the "green light" every project leader needs before moving forward. Doing work efficiently is useless if that work shouldn't be done at all.

Why Prioritization Matters

When everything is labeled "urgent," nothing is a priority. Poor prioritization leads to dropped decision quality, team burnout, and a "busy" culture that replaces actual progress. We visualized this as a "stuck" system: pushing too many projects through the same highway causes a total standstill. True flow only happens when we choose what to "park."

Key Takeaways for Project Leaders

• The leader’s role: leadership must provide direction, make tough trade-offs, and ensure the "project triangle" (time, scope, and cost/resource) remains in balance to deliver business outcomes.
• Influence without authority: you don't need a title to influence priority. Surface trade-offs by asking what stops or slows down to make room for your project, and always speak the language of strategy.
• Soft skills are power: success relies on "bravery" to ask uncomfortable questions, emotional regulation to maintain psychological safety, and setting boundaries to avoid absorbing leadership indecision.

Moving Forward

Prioritization isn't a one-time event; it’s a dynamic process that must be monitored from the initiation phase (where influence is highest) through to handover.

The recording of this webinar is accessible on our member-only part of our website: https://pmi-nl.nl/members-only