From my experience, the worst nightmare of a project manager is managing multiple projects at a time. Yet, according to an RGTP survey, 85 % of project managers live their professional lives in this nightmare. And unfortunately, I`m in that number. When you work in an IT consulting company, having just one simple, warm, and cozy project under your command is impossible. I mean, there was a nostalgic time when I lived like this, but it was at the dawn of my career when nobody wanted to give me more responsibility than I could handle, and what is more important, when my salary was small enough not to bother me with additional work. 🙂
Everything has changed since then, and now I can proudly declare that I have extensive experience managing multiple projects. So, in this article, I`m going to share this experience with you and try to help you make your miserable manager`s life a little bit easier.
Before diving into the topic, I would like to make one disclaimer. If you`re looking for software advice here, a silver bullet that will magically help you resolve your issue with multiple projects, sorry, you won`t find it here. The point is that all of the popular modern project management software have similar tools; the question is how to use these tools effectively to keep track of multiple projects simultaneously. This is a true mastery.
What’s the Problem With Multiple Projects?
Let`s start with trying to figure out the problems with managing multiple projects and why you usually come home physically and mentally depleted after a working day full of different projects.
- Unlimited amount of issues vs your limited time and capacity. When you manage multiple projects, your to-do list usually grows faster than you can check things off. It`s like having many kids or, better to say, working in a kindergarten. Everybody needs your attention and at the most inappropriate time.
- More unpleasant surprises. No matter how good you are at planning, unplanned things will also happen. And damn, this surprises are never good. So, it is obvious that if we have N surprises per one project per time unit, we will have N X 2 for two projects, N X 3 for three projects, and so on. And that`s how everything sets on fire.
- Competition for the shared resources. The competition between projects may take different forms, but usually, it is all about battling for the shared resources. Even if you`re the only person shared between several projects, the projects themselves and the project stakeholders conflict for your time and attention. The situation becomes much more difficult if more people are shared between a few projects. Add to this formula budget, timelines, whatever else you want, and the situation gets totally out of control.
- Conflicting milestones. Probably every experienced PM knows that managing a project is like a roller-coaster. When you`re in the middle of some project routine, whatever- everything goes more or less smoothly. However, when you face a milestone, be it a project kick-off or a major release, the workload increases significantly, and you find yourself drowning in work. And I`m talking about one project here; now imagine that you have two, three, or god forbid, more projects. If their milestones are at different times, you can balance your schedule, but if at least two of them have a major milestone at one time, it becomes tough to juggle all these things, and your effectiveness declines.
How to Keep Track of Multiple Projects
So, let`s try to figure out what to do if we found ourselves in this undesirable situation when we have a few projects that we have to manage at a time.
1. Document tasks for all the active projects in one place
The first thing you can do to make your life easier when managing multiple projects is to create something like a Dashboard where you can see tasks for all your projects or at least the most important ones.
You may use an online board tool like Trello or similar for this and embrace color coding to distinguish the tasks between different projects.
Or, if you’re adept at old-school methods, you can use your notebook. The simplest way is to divide the pages of the notebook into several sections, each corresponding to separate projects. You can also use marginal notes and different signs to mark the importance of the tasks, and you can also cross out tasks when done.
2. Embrace the time-blocking approach
The time-blocking approach is a very popular practice in managing multiple projects, when you split your day into several blocks, each dedicated to a specific project. This allows you to focus on one project at a particular timeframe and save time usually wasted on switching focus. Though theoretically, it is claimed to be effective, it is not so easy to implement it in practice. However, if you`re a PM with a good organizational mindset and enough authority in your organization, I guess you can manage this technique and train your teams so that you have limited availability for each of them during the day.
3. Use prioritization techniques proactively
Prioritization techniques, such as the Eisenhower matrix or RICE, are well-known project managers` allies. And when you`re managing a few projects at a time, they`re your best friends. I know that many PMs are using them proactively and have a prioritized to-do list for each project and a prioritized to-do list for all of them. That ensures they`re not doing something that is ot very important for Project A while something urgent needs to be done for Project B.
4. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate…
If I were asked to give just one piece of advice on how to manage multiple projects at once, I would advise delegating. As I mentioned before, when you manage multiple projects, the number of tasks you have on your list is much bigger than you physically can handle. So, in this case, you either learn to delegate and scale it successfully, or you will just die at work. Find people you can rely on for every project, train them, and ensure they can replace you on most responsibilities. It will become especially helpful when you have an emergency on one of your projects so that you can ask your trusted people to replace you on other projects.
Summary
I hope these simple yet effective pieces of advice will help you to avoid burnout when managing multiple projects at a time and keep track of all of them effectively. If you have personal tips and secrets, you`re always welcome to share them in the comments.