Funding What Works with WSJF (Practical Guide)

Most portfolios aren’t starved for ideas—they’re starved for clarity. Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) is a simple way to rank work by economic value instead of politics. Start with value, not effort. Write down the outcomes you care about: revenue, risk, cost to serve, customer impact. Approximate. Your first order ranking will be good enough to expose trade-offs.

Score the contenders. For each initiative, estimate:

• Business value (impact on goals)
• Time criticality (does value decay if we delay?)
• Risk reduction/opportunity enablement (what future options open up?)
• Size (job duration or relative effort)

WSJF = (BV + TC + RR) / Size. You don’t need perfect numbers—just consistent ones.Slice, then score again. Big bets hide waste. Break each initiative into a testable slice that fits inside 4–6 weeks. Score the slice, not the fantasy.Make the money move. Tie funding to slices. Every cycle, shift capacity toward what’s producing evidence. Kill work that doesn’t move leading indicators.Run the cadence. Meet briefly every 2–3 weeks: review outcomes, update scores, adjust. Your goal isn’t a ranked list; it’s a living conversation guided by data.Watch-outs.

• If everything is “critical,” nothing is.
• Don’t reward volume; reward outcomes.
• If executives re-sort the list by gut, bring it back to the measures you agreed on.

WSJF works because it’s transparent and repeatable. Done well, it turns “debate club” into “decision factory.”