Template · Decision-making & prioritisation
Impact-Effort Matrix template
For finding the quick wins by sorting ideas by how much they would do against how much they would cost. Leave it alone when the decision is big or hard to undo; two gut-feel axes are too crude for that. Instead Cost-Benefit Analysis, with a Risk Matrix beside it; a big or irreversible call deserves more than two gut-feel axes.
Download it
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Or work it through here
List your candidate actions, agree what impact means and over what horizon, then place each item in a quadrant with a note on why. Your entries persist for this browser session and can be copied out as Markdown or printed.
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What you may do with it
This sheet, meaning our drawing and layout of it, is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. Use it commercially, put it in a client deck, print it for a workshop, adapt it. Keep the attribution line that is printed on the sheet and you have met the licence.
Originator: No single originator; codified through quality-improvement and Lean Six Sigma practice. The framework itself is not ours to license, and the written entry behind this page, its worked example, critiques and sources, stays all rights reserved. The full licence position is set out in plain English.
Before you fill it in
A blank template is the easy part. The entry behind it covers how to run Impact-Effort Matrix properly, a worked example, the pitfalls real teams hit, and the situations where it is the wrong tool and something else would serve better.