Priority Clarification Canvas
A canvas for making priorities and criteria visible before drift accelerates.
Pathway:
Lead the Work
Area:
strategy-and-outcomes
Type:
Canvas
Audience:
Senior Leader / Executive, People Manager, Project / Program Manager
Time needed:
20 minutes
Primary Use:
Diagnose
Depth:
Practical Application
Priority Clarification Canvas
A one-page canvas for making priorities and criteria visible before drift accelerates. When teams agree in meetings but move in different directions afterward, it is rarely because of bad intentions — it is because success was never defined precisely enough to anchor shared direction.
Use it when
The team agrees on goals but not on what to sacrifice to reach them.
Alignment feels present in the room but dissolves in execution.
You need to make success criteria explicit before the next phase of work begins.
What you'll do
Write the outcome in one observable sentence — what will be true when the work is done.
List three to five success criteria. Each one should be verifiable.
Name what is out of scope. Boundaries define focus.
Identify the tradeoffs: if we optimize for X, what slows or stops?
Record who owns this decision and when you revisit.
What you'll leave with
Reduced drift and better stakeholder alignment. Criteria that are visible to everyone — and therefore possible to hold.
Where to go next
The Alignment & Strategy Reset Toolkit expands this canvas into a fuller working session, including a stakeholder script and decision record.