Run a 30–90 minute prioritisation session
Bring together the person who owns the data, someone who does the day-to-day admin and a team lead who feels the pain. Timebox the session: 30 minutes for a quick review of 6–8 candidates, 60–90 minutes if you want to score more deeply.
Start with a shared list (a whiteboard, Google Sheet or HubSpot list). For each candidate, agree a 1‑sentence description of the problem and the immediate user pain it causes — extra admin, broken reports or automation failures. The goal is a short ranked list you can act on that week.
Scoring checklist (use 30–90 minutes to score each candidate)
- Frequency (0–3): how often the problem appears in a week or month; 0 = rare, 3 = daily.
- Scope (0–3): how many automations/reports or team members rely on this field; 0 = none, 3 = many critical flows.
- Records (0–3): how many records are affected; 0 = handful, 3 = majority of a list or database.
- Ease of fix (1–3 where 1 = hard/long, 3 = very quick): estimate hands-on time or simple rule changes.
- Risk/impact of getting it wrong (0–2): customer-facing errors, compliance or billing issues get higher scores.
Scoring rule: add the three impact axes (Frequency + Scope + Records + Risk) then divide by Effort (Ease score inverted: Effort = 4 - Ease). That gives a simple ROI ratio — higher is better. Prioritise high impact and low effort first.
Quick examples (score sketch):
- Normalising contact source: many reports rely on this (impact high), usually a small set of values to standardise — often a fast win.
- Fixing missing owners: causes missed follow-ups and stuck automations; often a small batch update + a default assignment rule is enough.
- Trimming noisy activity: silences irrelevant events that retrigger workflows; clear rules and a one-off filter remove noise quickly.
One‑week follow-up plan to lock fixes and measure time saved
Day 1: apply the top 1–2 fixes with a clear owner, a brief note on the change and a rollback plan. Keep the changes small — a field normalisation, a bulk owner update, or a workflow tweak.
Days 2–5: monitor the affected reports and automations daily. Log the manual tasks that no longer occur (number of items or minutes spent). Use a simple shared sheet or a short Slack note to record what was prevented or how many fewer tickets/queries arrived.
End of week: compare before/after counts and estimate time saved (even rough minutes per week scales quickly). Formalise the change by adding a short process note, a validation step, and ownership. If you’d like a ready template or someone to run a session with your team, Optira can help as a practical helper.