CHAPTER 30

Managing Multiple Projects

Balancing Time, Resources, and Objectives

LOWELL DYE, PMP, PRINCE2^® REGISTERED PRACTITIONER, MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

Downsizing, organizational restructuring, changes in technology, reduced funding, and many other factors have driven many organizations to try to do more with less. Customers, senior management, and other key stakeholders want immediate responses and are typically focused on the short term, creating a constant pressure to reduce cycle times. There is also a natural tendency for achievement-oriented project managers to want to start more projects than can logically be accomplished given the time and resource constraints found in today’s business environment. Thus, project managers are often required to become multi-project managers and skilled multitaskers. On the surface, this may not seem to be too much of an issue. Hasn’t everyone at some time or another handled several activities simultaneously?

The terms program management, project portfolio management, multi-project management, and multitasking are becoming more commonplace as projects are continually added, modified, and removed in response to internal and external business activity and changing economic conditions. In fact, a significant aspect of the project management software industry emphasizes the creation and integration of tools, techniques, methods, and systems for prioritizing and managing myriad projects and their associated activities.

Therefore, project managers must be familiar with several aspects of managing multiple projects:

• Understanding what multiple project management entails

• Handling the cultural, political, and organizational elements that affect the management of multiple projects

• Identifying and managing the various roles and responsibilities in a multiple project environment

• Planning, staffing, and allocating resources in a multi-project environment

• Understanding the problems of multitasking

• Reporting and managerial decision making

• Overcoming challenges and achieving success in a multiple project environment

WHAT IS MULTIPLE PROJECT MANAGEMENT?

The terms program management, project portfolio management, and multi-project management are often used synonymously. However, they are in fact different. In the purest sense, portfolio management has two major components: a strategic element and an operational element. The strategic element involves project selection and prioritization—making sure the right projects are selected and then prioritized according to organizational strategic goals and objectives. Table 30-1 illustrates the major differences of multiple project and portfolio management.¹

Within the operational element, managing multiple projects is more concerned with day-to-day operational management and resource allocation of the projects within the portfolio. Add to the mix programs, strategic projects, other independent projects, and small quick-hit, short-duration projects—often referred to job assignments—and then resources become even more scarce and the project manager more stressed. Strategic projects are typically highly visible corporate undertakings that often become a high priority and pull resources from other projects and programs. An example of a strategic project is the roll-out of a corporate-wide project management-training curriculum that has been directed and sponsored by the president or CEO.

The Project Management Institute defines a program as “a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way. Programs may include elements of related work outside the scope of the discrete projects in the program.”² Programs have a major deliverable or objective to accomplish that determines which projects are undertaken in order to meet that objective—for example, building an aircraft carrier or the overhauling an information technology (IT) infrastructure within a large global corporation. Technically, a program is a subportfolio of projects focused on a single major goal that requires several separate and unique, but integrated, projects to produce the program elements. Programs generally have an overall program manager, a common objective, and defined interfaces, so some of the issues faced when managing several independent projects, each with its own (and sometimes competing) objectives, may not arise.

Source: James S. Pennypacker and Lowell D. Dye, Project Portfolio Management and Managing Multiple

Projects: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Proceedings of the Annual Project Management Institute Seminars & Symposium, 2000.

Most project managers do not manage programs or strategic portfolios; they are responsible for managing multiple short-term job assignments simultaneously. These projects are not grouped or assigned based on their contribution to a specific overall objective, but are grouped for better managerial control and tactical/operational efficiency.

Regardless of the purpose of the projects or how they are grouped, all of the programs and projects in the enterprise portfolio generally compete for the same resources. In a multi-project environment, all stakeholders need to clearly understand that resources should go to higher priority projects as determined by their urgency with respect to time, cost, customer requirements, and business objectives.

Unfortunately project priorities are not always established or maintained because of political, cultural, and other organizational factors, as well as a short-term, profit-driven motivation that almost forces a special emphasis on maximizing resources at 100 percent.

ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENTS AFFECTING THE MANAGEMENT OF MULTIPLE PROJECTS

These are common laments in project management. Typically, senior managers feel that most projects are not large enough, complex enough, or economically significant enough to warrant a dedicated project manager or project team. Given the fluctuating economy and short suspense time for most projects, this perspective might not be too far off. Senior managers can contribute to multi-project success by creating a culture that facilitates effective multi-project management, however.

A study conducted in 2008 by Patanakul and Milosevic³ and published in the International Journal of Project Management found three organizational-level factors that influence the effectiveness of multi-project management: project assignment (including project manager competency), resource allocation, and organizational culture. Additional research in 2013 documented the influence of team culture on multi-project success.⁴

Probably the single most significant factor in multi-project success is organizational culture—project management processes, communication, values, structure, decision making, employee and managerial attitudes, commitment, and so on. The organization’s culture is demonstrated in how it assigns project managers, prioritizes projects, utilizes sound project management practices, and actively supports the project managers with respect to project assignments and workload balance. Despite the reality that resource constraints are a fact of life in any business environment, many organizations fail to admit that committing limited resources to multiple projects does not speed up delivery, but rather the reverse. Without some type of prioritization process and overall control, projects compete for limited resources, generating much shifting and coordination of resources, thereby causing throughput to decrease, resulting in negative consequences to the organization including, but not limited to, the following:

• Additional costs are incurred resulting from late deliveries because resources are working on too many projects and are not available to accomplish the scheduled work.

• Additional costs are incurred resulting from assigned resources being underutilized because of bottlenecks created by overcommitted resources.

• Additional costs, both tangible and intangible, are incurred resulting from team member burnout, reduced quality due to overcommitment, and so on.

The senior and executive management team needs to set the culture and values, and establish systems that enable the effective management of multiple projects. In many companies there is a certain amount of “gamesmanship” in the creation of project budgets, schedules, and resource requirements. Add to this the sharing of responsibilities between functional managers and project managers—both jockeying for leadership—and things get more complicated. What saves projects in this environment are dedicated and hard-working project managers and teams that are often willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that project goals and objectives are satisfied.

Multi-project managers not only should possess the skills and experience necessary that will help them manage each individual project for which they have responsibility, but also should have the ability to coordinate work and resources among all of their projects. This is also an organizational culture issue. It is bad enough to assign unqualified managers to a project simply because they are available or have good technical skills; it is a far greater risk to assign someone who is unskilled in managing multiple projects to a situation where good administrative competencies, business skills, decision-making skills, and the ability to manage project interdependencies are crucial for project success.

Regardless of the corporate culture or the number of concurrent projects, there are a number of things that can be done to make the management of multiple projects more effective. One of the best ways to achieve this is by having clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN A MULTIPLE PROJECT ENVIRONMENT

All key stakeholders, especially project managers, sponsors, and functional/resource managers, must understand their individual roles and responsibilities and be fully committed to corporate, portfolio, and project objectives. If roles and responsibilities are not aligned, each stakeholder could allow personal agendas to interfere with project decisions and negatively impact project success.

The entire leadership team has the responsibility to provide skills necessary for project success and, when possible, to put team members in positions that will encourage and enhance professional and personal development. Project managers have the responsibility to coordinate resources among their projects and provide team building for team members. Functional managers have the responsibility to ensure that resources are available when the project manager needs them. Multi-project conflict can be reduced if levels of authority with respect to resource allocation, decision making, reporting requirements, corrective actions, and baseline management are clearly defined.

Senior and executive managers need to be actively involved with the balancing of resources among active and potential projects. However, management’s involvement should be at an appropriate level and not entail micromanagement. Senior management’s role is primarily to ensure that projects are linked to long-term business strategy. This role includes ensuring that projects are properly prioritized, project teams are adequately staffed, obstacles to success are removed, cross-project conflicts are resolved, and so on. Senior management also has the responsibility to ensure that methods and tools are available for sharing project information among all the project managers, team members, and other key stakeholders.

Effectively managing more than one project is only possible if project managers and team members can stay focused. The challenge is in how to separate their individual responsibilities for each assigned project, as well as non-project work. In a single-project situation, the project manager is often the technical or subject matter expert. In a multiple project environment, it is unlikely that the project manager will be a technical expert in all elements of all projects. However, the project manager does need to understand the technical elements of the project and be able to manage the technical team.

Project team members, whether full-time staff members, part-time employees, or subcontractors, should be assigned because of their technical knowledge and expertise. The more specific the skills and knowledge required and the more projects involved, the more important and difficult the resource allocation process. Because the number of team members is generally limited, there is a tendency to overcommit these resources for the sake of keeping them fully engaged. Remember that team members may have assigned responsibilities that are outside their areas of expertise, creating additional pressure and stress.

Planning, Staffing, and Allocating Resources in a Multi-Project Environment

While similar to those practiced in single-project management, basic planning and control methods and techniques may not be sufficient. Managing multiple projects is a challenge because organizational practices often ignore or underestimate the significance of establishing and adhering to project priorities, defining project standards and acceptance criteria, and integrating project data. The problem increases with the complexity of inter-project links, overlapping schedule and resource requirements, and the fact that project resources cannot be concentrated on multiple projects to the extent that they can be dedicated to a single major project or program. There is also a shared misconception among executives and project managers that if someone is skilled at managing one or two projects, they can handle many projects.

Multi-project managers must have good time management and prioritization skills, and have a dashboard reporting tool in place to effectively capture and report the status of all the projects within their project portfolio. Some of the biggest challenges project managers face in a multi-project environment include the following:

• Appropriate delegation: Effective delegation allows the project manager time to manage the projects for which he or she has responsibility. In a multi-project environment it is even more critical that the project manager be able to step back and see the big picture. The manager needs to focus on establishing and enforcing management practices, developing resourcing strategies, and prioritizing the projects. The project manager cannot get bogged down with low-level, low-priority tasks that can be delegated to another team member. In a concurrent project situation where the project manager is the project resource, time management and self-management become even more important.

Delegating up (another way of saying no) requires tactful communication. For example, a senior manager calls a project manager into her office. She tells him that he has been assigned to manage an additional project and will be interfacing with another division. The project manager might approach it this way: “I understand. Have you already talked with the other division and made them aware that I will be contacting them?” If the manager acknowledges the need to talk to the other division’s manager and takes that as an action item, the project manager has gently delegated a difficult conversation upward.

• Effective planning and integration: Establishing realistic project baselines and keeping individual project plans current is even more important when managing multiple projects. The more integrated the project plans, the easier it will be to manage the projects. Even if the manager is managing a portfolio of unrelated projects, a centralized approach to planning and document management is beneficial. Having an integrated master schedule of projects, including the overall life cycle, major deliverables, and resource requirements, helps the project manager maintain the necessary high-level view.

Having a common set of project management forms, templates, tools, and approved guidelines that can be reused and that are shared and communicated throughout the organization will help with the planning and integration of project resources. Shared templates help to expedite the planning process, relieve some of the administrative burdens on the project manager allowing more time for actual project management, and provide confidence on the part of management that the project management process is being consistently applied across all projects and programs.

To optimize time and resources in a multiple project environment, the use of good project management software is beneficial. During the past several years, companies have turned to a myriad of resource planning and optimization techniques with varying degrees of success. Some of the most common include resource planning, scheduling, and optimization techniques such as queuing theory, capacity requirements planning, theory of constraints, resource leveling techniques, and critical chain project management. In many situations, software may be required to properly develop a resource-loaded schedule and clearly identify time and resource conflicts. The number of projects and the size of each may determine the level of software sophistication and functionality required. If projects tend to be small, relatively simple, stand-alone projects, then something as simple as a spreadsheet or Gantt chart may be all that is necessary. For programs, large complex projects with many external dependencies, or a large number of small independent projects using a shared resource pool, then an enterprise system that integrates all projects into a master file may be necessary. A word of caution: software should never be considered a replacement for good project planning and decision making.

One of the best ways to manage resource allocation among multiple projects is to improve the quality of project effort and duration estimates. Realistic and supportable estimates can make or break project planning. Estimates, based on a well-defined work breakdown structure, provide the foundation for good time, cost, and resource planning. The importance of good estimation in a multiple project environment lies in determining resource task assignments and the creation of each project’s critical path. If management clearly understands the requirements of each project and the amount of flexibility available to them, then logical decisions can be made relative to the priorities, value, and contributions of all the projects.

Some of these decisions may be difficult and may go against established norms. For example, if projects are undertaken based on their contribution to the organization’s strategic goals and objectives and their benefit to the overall project portfolio, then the highest priority projects should be fully staffed first. The second priority project is fully staffed next, and so on. If sufficient resource capacity is not available, then lower priority projects should not be started. When a project is finished and capacity is again available, the next priority project can be staffed and started.

Projects started because of an external customer request or other profit potential typically get the most attention with respect to resource utilization. But many projects that compete for limited resources are not as obvious, nor do they get the attention they deserve, such as upgrades and enhancements, process improvement and cost-reduction projects, internal research and development, infrastructure systems deployment projects, facilities start-up projects, and many more. Sometimes these “non-profit” projects are started in response to a real customer or market need, but often they are initiated by management. Without defined and integrated portfolio and project management methodologies, resource requirements estimates and the subsequent resource allocation may be determined somewhat arbitrarily.

Here are four strategies for balancing the time and cost constraints of multiple projects:

1. Increase capacity relative to demand. Increase project team members and support staff; add new planning and management tools or enhancing existing tools; reduce non–value-added work, such as collateral assignments and meetings that take away from direct project work; provide training to team members, functional managers, and other stakeholders; and cross-train project team members in projects skills outside their area of expertise.

2. Reduce demand relative to capacity. Reduce the number of projects during peak demand periods, limit features, and reduce requirements if possible. Demand management is a key principle in project selection and prioritization as part of an overall portfolio management process.

3. Implement appropriate management and control systems. As defined in the broadest sense, systems may include a variety of tools, methods, and processes that enable management to establish realistic project/program management plans and enable project and functional manager to react quickly to changes in resource demand or project delivery times.

4. Learn to say no. The ability and willingness to say no is dependent on the organization and the skills of the project manager. In many organizations, saying no is not part of the culture. And unfortunately most people are not taught how to say no tactfully, nor are they encouraged to be honest enough to address the subject of project overload. In their book, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, Blanchard and colleagues⁵ ask the basic question, “Why is it that some managers run out of time, while their staff is running out of work?” The primary answer is that too many managers are taking on too many of their employees’ issues. Team members and stakeholders continually bring issues to the project manager and often the project manager is all too willing to take responsibility for addressing them. (See the earlier discussion on delegation.)

All too often, organizations and their employees, including project managers, operate under the misconception that a project manager can be given five or more projects, with each project receiving an allocation of 20 to 30 percent or less of the project manager’s time. For project team members, the allocation is even worse. Assigning team members to spend 5 to 10 percent of their time on each of their many projects provides very little actual time for real work. Team members generally have non–project-related responsibilities as well, such as internal committees, company-sponsored community activities, professional development and training, and so on. The additional commitments may be important to the company, but they take energy away from assigned projects.

A well-defined and established project selection and prioritization process and a good mechanism for communicating those priorities assists in saying no to work that does not meet organizational criteria for selection.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH MULTITASKING?

Multitasking—shifting back and forth between projects or activities with the appearance of handling both simultaneously—is viewed by many project managers as a way of being more productive, facilitated by the ability to be electronically connected, and therefore busy, at all times, not just during normal working hours. Yet, if multitasking is such a timesaver, then why are so many projects late despite everyone working all the time?

For many project managers, multitasking is seen as just part of the job. However, most people are not good at multitasking, and their resulting output is generally of a lesser quality. Consider, for example, driving while talking on a cell phone—two activities that engage the same side of the brain. A 2006 study published in the Human Factors Journal showed that drivers talking on cell phones were involved in more rear-end collisions and accelerated slower than intoxicated drivers who has a blood alcohol content 0.08 percent above the legal limit.⁶ Similarly, a study on multitasking published in 2001 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, discovered that when switching from one task to another, there are “time costs” in terms of productivity, efficiency, and concentration, and that these costs increase with task complexity.⁷ Logic, experience, and common sense tell us that the more projects that have to be juggled, the less efficient people are at performing any single task; and the longer it takes to return to the interrupted task, the harder it is to reengage in the previous activity. However, many project managers, even very dedicated and ethical ones, suffer from the effects of multitasking, primarily switch-tasking and continual partial attention.

Switch-tasking is shifting attention from one task to another without the first one being complete. For example, a project manager is working on a key project deliverable. A stakeholder calls, asking for information on a different project. The project manager must stop what he or she is working on, address the question, then get back to the original task. The problem is that the manager had to stop, orient to the new task, perform the new task, and reorient to the original task. All of this consumes time and energy. All too often, the manager is not able to return to the original task.

Continual partial attention means doing two or more things at once, but not being able to focus fully on any one. It is often done out of fear of missing something. For example, talking on the phone, working on the computer, and reviewing a project document feels like progress, but it only allows the project manager to skim over the tasks, picking up bits and pieces.

The following negative results of multitasking become obvious usually when it is too late to correct the problem: late projects, longer project durations, lower productivity and output, frustration, anger, chaos, and reduced communication and social interaction.

Today’s business environment encourages and rewards those who appear to be able to juggle multiple assignments, whether they actually can or not. If someone multitasks, it is viewed as a clear sign that they are motivated and working hard. But multitasking is also an indicator of poor planning or prioritization, both for the project manager and the organization. Project managers need to realistically assess the workload and their own capabilities.

Time management can be viewed from two perspectives: urgency and importance.⁸ One way to overcome the issue of multitasking is to gauge tasks from these two perspectives. Everything people experience falls into one of four categories:

• Urgent and important: activities such as a high-priority phone call from a critical stakeholder such as a senior manager or sponsor or a crisis that occurs and will affect an imminent deliverable.

• Urgent, but not important: Many interruptions, distractions, emails, and phone calls fall into this category. They say, “Deal with me now!”, but will not do anything to help with project accomplishment; in fact, these items prevent goal accomplishment and are a major cause of switch-tasking and continual partial attention.

• Not urgent, but important: activities such as personal time, planning, project deliverables, and updating project documentation. Time needs to be provided in the project schedule and put in the project management plan. If not planned for, these items could move into the urgent-and-important category after suffering from procrastination.

• Not urgent and not important: These activities are simply trivial distractions and time wasters. They should be avoided to the greatest extent possible, often by ignoring them or politely saying no.

PROJECT REPORTING AND DECISION MAKING IN A MULTIPLE PROJECT ENVIRONMENT

Managers, especially when handling multiple projects, have to make difficult decisions with respect to project priorities, resources, conflicts, and so on. To make effective project decisions, project and functional managers need to have a good understanding of individual project resource commitments, how resources are shared among all the projects in the active project portfolio, and where adjustments can be made. This assumes that responsible managers have the authority and experience to shift/reallocate resources from one project to another and, if necessary, adjust activity delivery dates.

To make logical decisions, managers must be able to quickly analyze the impact of changing, adding, or removing a project, and they must be able to respond appropriately. Such analysis requires that project data be accessible, reliable, and timely. There are many reporting tools and techniques of differing levels of sophistication, such as dashboards, scorecards, and variance reports, which provide stakeholders with project status information. The information provided by these tools should be used to make timely decisions, resolve conflict, and respond proactively—not reactively—to the changing conditions.

In a multi-project environment, the value of good communication and stakeholder management plans cannot be overemphasized. A success factor in multi-project management, as in single-project management, is timely reporting and communication with applicable stakeholders. The key is to make sure the right stakeholders have the right information in a timely manner in order to make better decisions. As tough as this is in a single environment, it is compounded by the fact that in a multi-project environment there are typically a complete set of stakeholders for each project, all with different, and sometimes opposing, interests and objectives. For reporting to be effective and beneficial, project plans need to be current and up to date. A project plan that is not used or updated or is incomplete will be useless as a management and communication tool, resulting in wasting precious time trying to provide status information or justifying why more time, resources, or funding might be required.

If project managers are managing more than one project with shared resources, they need to make sure that they have current information for each individual project. Functional managers need insight into how resources are being utilized across all projects and programs, and the resource requirements projections enable them to manage their staffing plans and ensure that project managers have the resources when they are needed. Senior managers and executives require much higher level information that is more strategic, such as portfolio-level data showing how projects and programs in the aggregate are contributing to corporate goals and objectives.

In a multiple project environment, it is impossible to please all of the stakeholders all of the time, but it is possible and crucial to be honest and upfront regarding capabilities, capacity, and progress. For example, when a customer complains about late deliveries, the first reaction is to push project teams to work harder and faster—to be more productive. The problem is that they are already working on a dozen other projects. In reality, what customers and all stakeholders actually want is a realistic plan and logical delivery dates that can be met. Most stakeholders understand that unexpected events occur and are generally willing to be flexible. Stakeholders of related projects or programs often have activities of their own that must be coordinated with expected activity delivery or project completion dates in order to meet their objectives. If an integrated approach is taken to project planning and control, then managing customer and stakeholder expectations will be much easier.

Regardless of the stakeholder, it is important that the recipient have confidence in the reported data. Earned value management and variance analysis reporting for programs and major projects have been used to report progress against approved baselines since the 1960s. More recently, organizations have also added Project Dashboard reporting to their toolkit. Dashboards are simply reporting tools that present a consolidated view of the active projects or programs in a portfolio. Dashboard reports typically provide project status, baseline and revision status, project budget, and schedule information. Dashboards typically use a color-coding structure to graphically report status: green (on budget, on schedule, with no significant issues); yellow (potential budget or schedule variances, with issues that need to be addressed); and red (severe budget or schedule problems, with significant issues that could impact project success). Management may require that all projects be reported regardless of status, or reporting may be done on an exception basis—only yellow or red projects will be reported. Dashboards or some other type of consolidated reports may be managed by a program manager or a centralized project management/control office, or the responsibility may be shared by the project managers. In either case, data reporting must be consistent. As project management and enterprise software become more sophisticated with respect to features and functions, dashboard generation and data accuracy is becoming much easier.

ACHIEVING SUCCESS IN A MULTIPLE PROJECT ENVIRONMENT

There is no single right answer for how to manage multiple projects, for the best software to use, for the right organizational structure, or for how to properly engage senior managers. What is important is for management to establish a culture that encourages open and honest communication, proactive decision making, accurate documentation, and timely reporting of all project and resource information. The establishment and use of good performance metrics and measurement criteria can lead to effective management of multiple projects and can position the organization to be competitive in a dynamic environment.

REFERENCES

¹ James S. Pennypacker and Lowell D. Dye, “Project Portfolio Management and Managing Multiple Projects: Two Sides of the Same Coin?” in James S. Pennypacker and Lowell D. Dye (editors), Managing Multiple Projects: Scheduling and Resource Allocation for Competitive Advantage (New York, Marcel Dekker, 2001).

² Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 5th edition (Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute, 2013).

³ Peerasit Patanakul and Dragan Milosevic, “The effectiveness in managing a group of multiple projects: factors of influence and measurement criteria,” in International Journal of Project Management, International Project Management Association, 2008, http://archive.stevens.edu/ses/documents/fileadmin/documents/pdf/MPMEffectivenessbyPeerasitPatanakulArticleinPress.pdf.

⁴ Zvi Aronson and Peerasit Patanakul, “Managing a Group of Multiple Projects: Examining the Influence of Team Culture and Leader Competence,” Howe School of Technology Management Research Paper Series, Number 2013-6, Stevens Institute of Technology, http://ssm/com/abstract=2205938, 2013.

⁵ Kenneth Blanchard, William Oncken, and Hal Burrows, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey (New York: Quill, 1989).

⁶ David Strayer, Frank A. Drews, and Dennis J. Crouch. “A comparison of the cell phone driver and the drunk driver,” Human Factors Journal 48, No. 2 (2006), pp. 381–391, http://www.distraction.gov/download/research-pdf/Comparison-of-CellPhone-Driver-Drunk-Driver.pdf.

⁷ J.S. Rubenstein, D.E. Meyer, and J.E. Evans, “Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27 (2001).

⁸ Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (New York: Franklin Covey, 1989), p. 145.

FURTHER READING

Ginger Levin, Interpersonal Skills for Portfolio, Program, and Project Managers (Vienna, VA: Management Concepts, 2005).

Irene Tobias and Michael Tobias, Managing Multiple Projects (Vienna, VA: Management Concepts, 2005).