Classify strategic vs operational work

Not everything deserves a three-gate review. Project classification splits new work into two classes at the moment of creation: strategic initiatives go through the governance pipeline as proposals, operational work is created directly. The thresholds you configure tell people which side their work belongs on.

Enable classification

1. Open Organization Settings, go to the Governance tab, then the Classification section.

2. Turn on Enable project classification. This adds a Strategic or Operational picker to every new-project flow.

3. Set the Strategic Project Thresholds: a Budget threshold (50,000 by default), a Duration threshold in weeks (12 by default), and whether crossing team boundaries matters (Multi-team required). Projects meeting any of these criteria are recommended as strategic.

4. Optionally rename the two classes under Custom Labels. The defaults are “Strategic Project” and “Operational Project”, but a PMO might prefer “Major Initiative” and “BAU Work”. Your labels appear on the picker, on project badges, and in the type filter on the Projects page.

Changing classification settings requires the governance manage permission, Owner and Admin by default.

What creators see

With classification on, selecting New Project anywhere (the Projects page, quick create, the command palette) opens a New Project Request dialog with two cards:

• The strategic card describes cross-functional, high-budget, org-wide work and shows your thresholds as chips (for example “Budget > $50k”, “Duration > 12w”). Choosing it opens the proposal form, and the work enters the pipeline described in Submit a proposal.
• The operational card describes single-team, business-as-usual work. Choosing it goes straight to the normal project creation dialog, as in Create your first project, and the project is tagged with your operational label.

Note

The thresholds are guidance, not enforcement. The creator makes the call, and the cards exist to make the right call obvious. If your organization has governance enabled but classification switched off, there is no choice at all: every new project starts as a proposal, so the pipeline cannot be bypassed.

After creation

Projects carry their classification from then on. The Projects page gains a type filter using your custom labels, and projects born from approved proposals are classified as strategic automatically, complete with the Governed badge described in From proposal to governed project.

FAQs

Can someone route strategic work through the operational path? Yes, deliberately so; the picker is a routing aid, not a gate. If you need hard enforcement, leave classification off so every project request goes through a proposal, and let reviewers reject what does not belong.

Do the thresholds reclassify existing projects? No. Classification is chosen at creation time. Changing thresholds only changes the guidance shown to future creators.

This section also mentions a Project Creation Gate. What is that? It controls when an approved proposal spawns its project and is independent of the picker. It is covered in From proposal to governed project.