Quick wins
High impact, low effort. Do these first.
- When
- Start now, results in weeks or months
- Check
- Is the impact real, or a hopeful guess?
The impact effort matrix, how consultants pick what to do first
An impact effort matrix is a 2 by 2 grid that ranks ideas by how much they help and how hard they are to do. Plot effort across and impact up. High impact, low effort ideas go first, big projects get planned, small easy ones fill gaps and low impact, high effort ideas get dropped. In our experience, consultants use it to turn a long list of fixes into an order of work. Soreno, an AI voice interview practice app for consulting, investment banking and other finance candidates, runs a free profitability case with no sign-up, where you end by ranking your fixes out loud, and full mock cases with scored feedback.
Updated
- The axes
- Effort across, impact up
- Effort counts cost, time and the change people must make
- Do first
- High impact, low effort
- Often called quick wins
- Worked case
- 8 ideas, 40 restaurants
- Invented by us, every number shown
- Free practice
- No sign-up
- A full profitability case with a timer
What is an impact effort matrix?
UC Irvine's process improvement guide describes the impact effort matrix as a way to find the ideas with the most impact for the least effort, and to decide which to put in place and in what order. The US General Services Administration's customer experience playbook gives government teams the same advice. You score each idea on two things, place it on the grid, and read the order of work off the four quadrants below. The quadrant names are common shorthand, not a standard.
Major projects
High impact, high effort. Plan and fund them.
- When
- Start soon, results take a year or more
- Check
- Pick one or two, not all of them
Fill-ins
Low impact, low effort. Do them when there is room.
- When
- Alongside the quick wins
- Check
- Several small ones can add up
Money pits
Low impact, high effort. Drop or park them.
- When
- Not now
- Check
- Say why, so they don't come back unexamined
Worked example: Harbor Lane restaurants (ours)5 steps
Harbor Lane, an invented chain of 40 restaurants, needs $6 million more profit a year. The team has brainstormed eight ideas. Which should it do first? This case and every number in it are invented by Soreno for practice.
Set the scales
Dollars for impact, months and cost for effort
Impact is the profit each idea adds a year. Effort is how long it takes and what it costs up front. Our cutoffs: high impact means $1 million a year or more, and high effort means more than 6 months or more than $1 million up front. Agree the cutoffs before you score, or every idea drifts toward the middle.
Quick wins
$2.7 million a year
Renegotiate food supply contracts ($1.5 million a year, 3 months, $100,000) and cut the menu from 80 items to 50 ($1.2 million a year, 4 months, $200,000). Both pay back inside a year at little cost.
Fill-ins
$1.7 million a year
Match staff schedules to hourly traffic ($800,000 a year, 2 months, $50,000) and raise drink prices 3% ($900,000 a year, 1 month, no cost). Each is small, but together they are worth more than either quick win on its own.
Major projects and money pits
Fund one, drop two
Major projects: build its own online ordering ($2.5 million a year, 12 months, $1.5 million) and close the four weakest restaurants ($1 million a year, 9 months, $800,000). Money pits: launch a loyalty program ($400,000 a year, 8 months, $600,000) and remodel every restaurant ($500,000 a year, 18 months, $4 million). Online ordering is the bigger major project and the only idea that wins new customers, so fund it. Keep the closures as a fallback, and drop the loyalty program and the remodel.
Recommend
$6.9 million against a $6 million gap
Do the quick wins and fill-ins now: $4.4 million a year, 73% of the gap, within 4 months, for $350,000 up front. Start online ordering in parallel for another $2.5 million in about 12 months. Together that clears the gap by $900,000. The main risk: menu cuts and supplier talks lean on the same managers, so stagger them.
How to build one5 steps
The steps follow UC Irvine's guide, with our notes on using them in client work.
List
Write down every idea
Start from the root cause, not the symptoms. A tree of causes, kept MECE, gives you ideas that don't overlap.
Issue trees for case interviewsScore impact
Use data where you have it
UC Irvine says impact should rest on data or on the judgment of the people who run the process, with a team estimate as the last resort. In a profit case, impact is dollars a year. With no data, score 1 to 5 and agree what a 1 and a 5 mean before anyone scores.
Score effort
Count cost and change
UC Irvine counts the cost of putting the idea in place along with any change in behavior it needs. Time to results belongs here too.
Plot
Effort across, impact up
Draw the grid with four quadrants and place each idea. The top left holds the high impact, low effort ideas, and the bottom right holds the ones least likely to be chosen.
Check
Test the top picks before you commit
UC Irvine warns that the matrix narrows the list but does not ensure the top choices will be put in place, and that a closer look may turn up problems with an idea. Look closer at each before you commit money to it.
The PICK chart: the same grid, other names4 quadrants
AHRQ, the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, describes the PICK chart as a Lean Six Sigma tool, sometimes called an effort/impact chart, drawn as a 2 x 2 grid with ideas on sticky notes. The matches to our quadrant names are ours.
Implement
Start here
AHRQ calls the implement quadrant a good place to start. It matches the quick wins.
Challenge
Harder, high payoff
AHRQ says the team can look at these next: harder, but with a high payoff. It matches the major projects.
Possible
Not a priority
Ideas AHRQ says are not a priority to pursue.
Kill
Hard to do, low payoff
AHRQ says kill just means the idea is hard to do and has a low payoff, and these should likely not be considered. It matches the money pits.
Impact effort matrix vs a weighted prioritization matrix2 tools
Searches for prioritization matrix turn up two different tools. Pick by how many things you need to weigh.
Impact effort
Two scores, one picture
Fast, visual and easy to explain to a client team. It suits a long list of ideas when impact and effort are what matter most.
Weighted
Several criteria, weighted and multiplied
The Minnesota Department of Health describes a version where the team agrees criteria, weighs them against each other, rates each option on each criterion and multiplies through. It suggests it for groups of 3 to 8 people choosing among 5 to 10 options on 3 to 6 criteria.
From UC Irvine: impact effort matrix, AHRQ: prioritize opportunities for improvement, GSA: customer experience playbook and Minnesota Department of Health: prioritization matrix.
How does the impact effort matrix show up in a case interview?
In our experience, rarely by name. It shows up at the end, when the interviewer asks what the client should do first. Four things set strong answers apart.
Brainstorm, then rank
After a list of ideas, say which you would do first and why, in impact and effort terms. A list with no order sounds unfinished.
Impact in numbers
Put a dollar figure or a size on each idea's impact where the case gives you data. Big, medium and small is the fallback.
Effort beyond cost
Time to results, the people who must change how they work, and risk. A cheap idea that needs every store manager to change is not low effort.
Do first, do next, don't do
End the case with quick wins now, one major project started, and what you would drop. Use the profitability framework to find the gap and the matrix to close it.
7 case questions that end in ranking ideas
Under each question is what a strong answer does, and a link to practice it out loud. Brainstorm, then say which ideas you would do first.
Brainstorm and rank
A list of ideas, then an order.
Brainstorm ways a movie theater chain could grow its revenue.
Groups ideas by revenue line, then picks the two worth doing first by size and speed. Practice it, see a model answer
A gym chain wants to double its revenue in five years. How would you approach the problem?
Sizes each growth lever against the target and shows which few close it, in what order. Practice it, see a model answer
A clothing retailer needs to cut costs by 10% without hurting sales. Where would you look?
Ranks cuts by savings and by risk to the customer, and starts with the biggest cost lines. Practice it, see a model answer
Public sector and nonprofit
Impact may not be dollars.
A city wants to cut traffic deaths in half within ten years. How would you approach it?
Measures impact in lives saved per dollar and ranks fixes by that and by how fast they can start. Practice it, see a model answer
A hospital's emergency room wait times have doubled in a year. How would you structure the problem?
Finds the bottleneck first, then ranks fixes that free capacity fastest for the least disruption. Practice it, see a model answer
A food bank's demand is up 30% while donations are flat. How would you help?
Weighs new supply and lower cost per meal, and picks the steps a small team can carry. Practice it, see a model answer
Close the case
Ranking is how you recommend.
You have finished the analysis on a market entry case and the CEO walks in. What is your recommendation?
Leads with the answer, then the two or three steps in order, the risk and what to do next. Practice it, see a model answer
Common mistakes with an impact effort matrix
Scoring by gut
Impact with no number behind it. Use the case data, or say what you assumed and why.
Effort as cost only
Ignoring time and how much people must change. Those are what make projects slip.
Effort guessed by the wrong people
In our experience, effort scored by the people proposing the idea tends to come in low. Check it with the people who would do the work.
Everything in the middle
Without cutoffs agreed up front, every idea lands near the center and the grid decides nothing. AHRQ's advice for its PICK chart: don't let anyone place an idea between quadrants.
Quick wins only
Easy fixes rarely close a big gap. In the worked case the quick wins bring $2.7 million against a $6 million gap, so one major project has to start too.
Ranking before diagnosing
Ideas that don't touch the root cause can score well and still miss. Find the cause first, then rank the fixes.
Rank your fixes out loud
Soreno's AI interviewer runs a full case, asks which fix you would do first, pushes back on your impact numbers and scores the session. Start your free week.
Questions people ask
What is an impact effort matrix?
A 2 by 2 grid that ranks ideas by impact and effort. High impact, low effort ideas go first, high impact, high effort ones get planned, low impact, low effort ones fill gaps, and low impact, high effort ones get dropped.
What are the four quadrants?
Quick wins (high impact, low effort), major projects or big bets (high impact, high effort), fill-ins (low impact, low effort) and money pits or thankless tasks (low impact, high effort). AHRQ's PICK chart uses implement, challenge, possible and kill, which line up roughly in that order. The names vary, the logic doesn't.
Is an impact effort matrix the same as a prioritization matrix?
It is one kind. Prioritization matrix can also mean a weighted grid that scores options on several criteria, like the Minnesota Department of Health's method. The impact effort matrix uses just two.
What counts as effort?
Up front cost, time to results and the change people must make. UC Irvine's guide names cost and behavior change. A cheap idea can still be high effort if many people must work differently.
Do consultants really use it?
It is a standard improvement tool. UC Irvine's Lean Six Sigma guide, AHRQ and the US General Services Administration all describe it. In a case interview it shows up as the order of your recommendations. The grid is simple, so the work is in scoring impact and effort honestly.
Should I draw one in a case interview?
You rarely need to draw it. Use its logic when asked what to do first: name the quick wins, the one big project to start and what you would drop, with impact numbers where the case gives them.
Is it the same as the Eisenhower matrix?
No. The Eisenhower matrix sorts tasks by urgency and importance, for managing your own time. The impact effort matrix sorts ideas by payoff and cost, for choosing what a team or company should do.