Quadrant Analysis

A 2x2 quadrant analysis can be carried out to help one make decisions in a variety of situations. It's as simple as choosing two criteria with which you would like to evaluate your choice, and placing them on their respective axis. Most commonly, this type of analysis is used in business situations, to determine which endeavors should be pursued, and compare certain potential opportunities. For this example, let's explore effort and impact.

At a very high level, the Quadrant Analysis is used in the context of productivity, business, project management.

Quadrant Analysis quadrant descriptions, including examples
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What is the Quadrant Analysis?

A visual explanation is shown in the image above. The Quadrant Analysis can be described as a matrix with the following quadrants:

  1. High effort; low impact: Place high effort, low impact items here. Most likely, you'll want to avoid these items.
  2. High effort; high impact: High effort and high impact projects may be worth your time, because of their high payoff.
  3. Low effort; low impact: Low effort and low impact items go here. They may be easy, but their low payoff makes them a questionable investment of resources.
  4. Low effort; high impact: Low effot and high impact items fit here. Invest in these! Their relative low efforts makes for a high ROI.

What is the purpose of the Quadrant Analysis?

Have you ever been caught between two potential routes to take and found yourself stuck? This is where conducting a quadrant analysis can help. You must simply decide on the two criteria by which you would like to analyze your choice. For example, these criteria could be risk and reward, time and effort, effort and impact, or anything else that helps you analyze the specific use case for that choice. Some of the most popular forms of quadrant analysis are SWOT analysis - which focuses on Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats -, the Eisenhower Method for time management, and Market Growth/Share. No matter which criteria you choose for your quadrant analysis, it's as simple as putting the criteria on the correct axis, and dividing choices into one of four categories. This will give you a clear idea of where your priorities lie.


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What templates are related to Quadrant Analysis?

The following templates can also be categorized as productivity, business, project management and are therefore related to Quadrant Analysis: Effort Impact Matrix, Gap Analysis Matrix, Growth Share Matrix, Impact Matrix, Kraljic Matrix, Outsourcing Matrix, PICK Matrix, Risk Analysis Matrix. You can browse them using the menu above.

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