How do we assess a new urgent project without derailing everything?
Urgent intake trade-offEvaluate the new initiative alongside what it will displace. Urgency may justify reprioritization, but it does not create additional skilled capacity or eliminate existing obligations.
What to do now
- Confirm the urgency and required outcome
- Estimate immediate capacity demand
- Identify displaced commitments
- Obtain an explicit portfolio reprioritization
When to escalate
Escalate when
The urgent request conflicts with mandatory or high-consequence existing work.
Who decides
The portfolio decision authority
Example
An emergency initiative starts after leadership accepts which lower-priority milestone will move.
Mistake to avoid
Adding the project while claiming every current date remains unchanged.
Prevent a repeat
Review whether active commitments fit available capacity and current priorities rather than just tracking project counts.
Suggested ApprovedFlow setup
- Projects
- Resources
- Documents
- Approvals
Use project and capacity records to support portfolio decisions, then record approved priorities and consequences explicitly. See the platform
Related cases
- A sponsor keeps launching projects outside the intake process. What should happen?Uncontrolled portfolio entry
- How do we maintain a useful project inventory?Unreliable portfolio baseline
- Our utilization is high, but delivery is slow. Why?Utilization-flow trade-off
- The sponsor says everything is equally important. How can we prioritize?Unresolved strategic trade-offs