Implementing or acting on the findings

It is important to make timely decisions that relate to the needs you have identified. But which needs will you act on first? An Ease/Impact Chart can be a useful tool in helping the team or group decide which issues to tackle first.

How To Do It

To use an Ease/Impact Chart, list out and number your possible actions -- the actions you might take to address each need identified by your customers. Acquire any additional information about each action that could help you make your decision, for example, cost information.

Then on a blank flip chart, draw two lines crossing each other, like this:

The vertical axis represents the Impact a particular action may have.
The horizontal axis represents the Ease with which an action may be accomplished.
These are relative terms:

The bottom left quadrant represents actions that are LOW impact for customers (for example, the action would affect fewer customers, or would not be as important to customers), and LOW ease (meaning -- hard to do).

The bottom right quadrant represents actions that are LOW impact for customers and HIGH ease (meaning -- easy to do).

The upper left quadrant represents actions that would significantly impact customers (HIGH impact), or impact many customers, but these actions are difficult (LOW ease).

Finally, the upper right quadrant represents actions that would both significantly impact customers (HIGH impact), AND are relatively easy to do (HIGH ease).

Plot a number or letter corresponding to each potential action into the quadrant that is most appropriate. For example, if an action would affect many customers, but would seem relatively difficult to carry out, plot the number corresponding to that action in the lower left quadrant.

Within the team, it is usually necessary to talk through each item to determine its correct placement on the chart.

For an example, we are going to suppose that a team of librarians has completed a needs assessment project with humanities and social sciences faculty. On the next page is a list of actions they might take in response to the needs identified by that group of customers, along with preliminary cost information.

Let's continue.