Managing Multiple Projects: The True Test of Project Management

By: Susan Peterson, M.B.A., PMP
Copyright 2010, Susan Peterson, All Rights Reserved

It’s that time of year again when those of us who celebrate year-end holidays find ourselves behind schedule, over budget and not meeting performance expectations. Most project managers do manage concurrent projects throughout the entire year. Ironically, many project management textbooks only address the management of one project at a time. That’s a luxury that few of us ever enjoy. Whether it’s a few weeks of “holiday compression” or an ongoing state of affairs in a work environment, there are a few techniques that can be effective in managing multiple projects.

Different Projects/Similar Activities.
Even though each project may have different goals and tangible deliverables, there are tasks that lend themselves to consolidation across projects. For example, there is often a period of time when vendors or subcontractors are being assessed prior to making final selections. The tasks associated with this activity can include such things as Internet research, request for proposal (RFP) development, and reference verification. In many cases the same vendors and subcontractors are used by an organization in multiple projects. Therefore, it makes sense to group these tasks and assign them to one or more individuals to conduct for all of the projects.

Split Activities.
The typical Gantt chart display has tasks grouped into activities that are completed in full before other dependent activities begin. However, the actual accomplishment of all tasks within an activity in a linear fashion may not be feasible for a number of reasons, such as subcontractor delays, customer/client change requests, etc. Project managers of single projects often find that they have to defer parts of activities to another time within the project schedule. This technique can also be used across multiple concurrent projects. Obviously, dependencies still need to be taken into consideration in re-arranging tasks. Use of this technique can assist in leveling resource demands and can be a factor in consolidating tasks as mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

Different Projects/Shared Human Resources.
Within any organization there are a handful of people who seem to get assigned to virtually every project. These simultaneous and consistent assignments may be due to the person’s functional responsibilities, technical expertise, political clout, or any of a myriad of logical or illogical reasons. Each person who is in demand is often worth two or more “ordinary people” in terms of talent and work performance. An effective method for addressing the challenge of shared resources is to develop a profile of total commitment for each of the most critical shared resources. These profiles should include the fluctuations in percentages of involvement and the related timing both for each project and for all relevant projects in total. In many cases the profiles can readily identify periods of intense effort as contrasted with those of minimal involvement for each individual. The individuals can then be assigned to activities in multiple projects based on true availability.

Managing multiple projects, whether for business or for personal reasons, requires a different perspective with regard to planning and resource utilization. By using the techniques outlined in this column, project managers can maintain a sense of balance in facing a most difficult challenge. Happy Holidays!

Susan Peterson, M.B.A., PMP, is a consultant who manages diverse programs and projects in both the private and public sectors for individual organizations and consortia. She also conducts enterprise assessments of project portfolio management practices. Prior to establishing her consulting practice Susan led major efforts for Fortune 100 organizations throughout the United States. She teaches the Project Management Simulation capstone course as well as the Project Portfolio Management course in the University of California, San Diego, Project Management certificate program and is a member of the curriculum committee. She can be contacted at susanada@aol.com.

Learning From "Lessons Learned"

By Susan Peterson, MBA, PMP
Copyright 2007, Susan Peterson, All Rights Reserved

The recent terrible fires in southern California are yet another reminder of the ongoing battle of human beings against the elements. Every part of the planet has its challenges with the ravages of nature. Whether it be flood, fire, severe storms, or other disasters, each human response effort to these events is a project. In some situations responses have been planned well in advance of an actual disaster. However, others are hastily developed under pressure in crisis mode. Regardless of the level of planning, all such responses include "after the fact" scrutiny from a variety of sources. This column focuses on "lessons learned” an effective process rather than only a hunt for the guilty followed by punishment.

“We must have done something right.”
So often the practice of reviewing a project after its closure dwells only on those things that went wrong. While organizations want to utilize best practices in their functional operations, they often do not identify best practices that are employed in managing projects. Some areas where effective project management techniques can be identified include addressing risks proactively, sharing resources across projects, outsourcing management, and vendor analysis. For example, capturing how resources were shared by merging schedules of two projects and adjusting deliverables is an invaluable practice that can be reused for virtually any future project. Correlating vendor performance with specific tangible deliverables is another technique that can benefit a wide variety of upcoming projects. In any case the first emphasis in assessing lessons learned should be to highlight the practices that were effective and to determine how those practices can be communicated to other project managers and can be documented for ready access in the future.

“When all else fails, blame the project manager.”
It is true that responsibility for addressing project problems rests with the project manager. However, in some situations the project manager is doomed to failure by causes beyond his/her control. While there are any number of project problem causes, let’s focus on those caused by an organization’s project culture and attitude. There are far too many organizations that believe that there is no such thing as a “successful” project. The prevailing attitude is that projects never accomplish anything, always run over budget, and never finish on time. Yet the causes often are rooted in the organization and its actions. If projects do not have documented and approved goals, it is impossible to know if they achieve success. If they are funded before they are planned, then the budgets are meaningless. Likewise, a project that has a completion date set before it is planned can seldom successfully meet that date. The “lesson to be learned” in this type of situation is that the organization must assess what it needs to do in order to provide and environment where projects have a "fighting chance" to succeed. If an organization does not support effective project management methodology, then the majority of its projects will fail.

“No pain, no gain.”
Even if lessons learned from project problems and mistakes are well documented, the real benefit is derived only if the true causes are proactively addressed. Instead, many organizations wait for the next project to experience the same problems before recognizing that aggressive action should have been taken well in advance. It takes tremendous strength and courage to eliminate bureaucratic obstacles, such as a lengthy sign off process, that can thwart effective and timely project management. Addressing the political aspects, such as lack of sponsor support or mid-project budget cuts, takes much perseverance to uncover and effectively identify means to keep these actions from occurring on future projects. The entire lessons learned process is wasted unless problem causes are eliminated or mitigated.

Our thoughts are with all of the people who have been impacted by the recent firestorms. It is a long process to deal with the many aspects of recovery. We can only hope that the lessons learned are effectively applied in advance of the next disaster that inevitably will occur.

Susan Peterson, M.B.A., PMP, is a consultant who manages diverse programs and projects in both the private and public sectors for individual organizations and consortia. She also conducts enterprise assessments of project portfolio management practices. An overview of her program and project specialties is available at http://www.pmi-sd.org/Consultants. She teaches the Project Management Simulation capstone course in the University of California, San Diego, Project Management Certificate program and is a member of the curriculum committee. She can be contacted at susanada@aol.com.

The Right Stuff

Another NASA-related video on best practices and continuous improvement. Steve Goo of Boeing describes a model he uses and makes more difficult every year to improve practices at Boeing.