Remember to include the aspects of your impact assessment process that rely on intuition and experience in addition to data-driven processes. The experience and feelings of a program manager can be an important factor when developing a strategy from the results of an impact analysis effort.

"The first thing I would do is brainstorm a list of impact areas to be assessed. For example, I might consider financial impact, customer satisfaction, resource time, the frequency in which something occurs, the number of affected clients or users, etc. I would assign a weight to each of these impact areas depending on the relative importance of the area to the client and business unit I am working with.

Next, I would develop an easy-to-use scale to rate each assessment item in terms of impact. A typical scale would be a high-low scale in which I use the numbers 1-10. I would rate the items myself using a data-driven approach, or facilitate a stakeholder session to rate the items. Using a simple formula, I would then calculate the overall impact of each item.

I would consider adjustments to the scores based on my previous experience and intuition as well as the experience and feelings of the other subject matter experts involved. I would then develop a recommendation with strategic and tactical guidance supported by the impact analysis."