In this article, we’ll share the 9 strategies for managing multiple projects in an effective way that leads to delivering successful project outcomes.
When managing a program or a team, you have many projects progressing simultaneously. Without a standard process to manage multiple projects, it’s difficult to know which work you must prioritize. But there’s a better way to manage and organize work.
Strategies for Managing Multiple Projects
Designate a Place For Your Projects
Managing and planning all project in a single place lets you see the roadmap status. A work or project management platform is the best and most flexible tool, one that’s collaborative and easy to use.
Define Goals, Responsibilities, and Plans at the Start
Without a standard planning process or a workflow, every project is managed differently. Consequently, there is an inconsistency in deliverables and wastage of time in setting up the process.
To address this issue, ensure the plan is clear from the initial stage. At the level of the project, this means a clear outline of goals, every piece of work and step that needs completion, when each is to be done, and the person responsible for it. Ensure building approvals and feedback which can get dropped easily if you don’t plan.
Prioritize High Impact Work
It’s tempting to start the easiest project first, but you should resist. Prioritize projects based on the impact of projects. Your priorities must align with company goals. Prioritize the project strategically on both micro and macro levels.
Empower the Team When Priorities Change
Setting priorities and work alignment is key but be flexible at the same time. But if you track work using a to-do list and spreadsheet across different tools, it can be difficult to know about the team’s work. Consequently, after priorities change, you are not able to know what needs to be rescheduled, how busy team members are, and how you can track work that is on hold. The best way to deal with this is the implementation of a change control process.
Communicate and Manage Expectations Clearly
Teams face communication barriers because of a lack of work visibility of their work, their team member’s work, and their stakeholder’s work. When you are not able to get an insight into the work of others, you don’t know about the context and lack an understanding of the shifting timeline, whether priorities are the same, and how the project is making progress.
With updates, every team member and stakeholder has access to work progress. Deploy a tool that enables you to share progress and status updates. Instead of sourcing updates and data across documents, you can get information through a single click and share that information with one more click.
Look at Work Across Different Projects
There’s one more pitfall to project planning which is you are not able to see the work of a single team member across different projects. This means you rely on the team for workload information. This makes addressing problems difficult like controlling missed deadlines and recognizing less utilized talent.
You want to see the project tasks, the person assigned to the tasks, and the due dates, so you see timeline conflicts and overbooked employees. This can remove, defer, or re-delegate tasks to keep projects on their track. Choose a tool that has filters to allow you for this.
Adjust Project Schedules
Even planned projects can be derailed if they are not properly scheduled. For instance, if you plan to launch two web updates simultaneously, they might be dragging longer or conflicting with each other because your team trying to do a lot at the same time. Instead, coordinate or schedule the work of your team with the complete scope of your program in mind and implement a plan for incident management.
Delegate Work
No manager, whether a project manager or a product manager wants to do micromanaging, but feeling like being in the dark and losing sight of tasks can make it impossible to be a good leader. But there still is hope. Through sharing a common source of truth with the team can enable tracking everyone’s work. You can get an insight into the team members’ work, when the work is due, and how they are making progress. This way, you can check the tasks without micromanaging.
Track Your Workflows
Do not reinvent the wheel at the start of the project. Simplify and templatize the way you start the project.
9 Strategies for Managing Multiple Projects- FAQs
What is the best way to track the progress of multiple projects?
Use Kanban boards or Gantt charts for visual mapping of your project progress and prioritize tasks based on importance and due dates.
How to keep track of projects?
Use a tracker with visual dashboards, real-time updates, and reporting tools. These features offer clarity about progress, help the team stay focused, and streamline communication.
How many projects can one person manage?
Research suggests that one person can manage up to five projects at the same time, depending on the individual skill level, project complexity, and available resources. However, exceeding five projects can lead to increased stress and diminished performance.
Why it is necessary to break the program into sub-projects?
Breaking the program into sub-projects enables you to delegate to people. It gives responsibility to people who work and matches accountability with authority.
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