NHS Education for Scotland: Prioritisation matrix

Summary

The Prioritisation Matrix is a structured visual tool to help you decide which improvement ideas to test first and how to focus your activity and energy. It works best in a collaborative environment and can help to build buy-in and communicate why you have chosen to test certain ideas before others.

They come in many different forms, but the simplest and easiest to use is the 2 x 2 matrix. The axis of the matrix are usually labelled to enable you categorize the priority of each change idea. Usually the horizontal axis is labelled with a concept such as “effort” or “willingness to adopt”. The vertical axis is usually “impact” or “value”.