CHAPTER 2

Juggling the Task-Oriented Project Portfolio

“What makes my projects so tough?” Carolyn asks. “Several reasons come to mind.

“First, my regular job is a full-time job. Handling human resources issues for thirty people takes time.

“Second, my days are filled with emergencies and unplanned events. Somebody’s having a problem working with a boss, or a subordinate, or a coworker. There’s an important meeting, and a few of the issues may affect human resources, so I need to be there.

“Third, many of my projects don’t have deadlines. I get so wrapped up in immediate problems that I lack time to get to important long-range issues—until they turn into crises.

“Fourth, all my jobs seem to have Priority #1. It’s vital that we get some new health insurance for the staff. It’s vital that we straighten out the payroll problems. It’s vital that we improve employee communication.

“Fifth, well…I’m generally a very organized person, but with everything I’m supposed to do, it’s easy to let details slip through the cracks.”

DEFINITIONS

Here are some key terms you will want to become familiar with as you explore task-oriented project portfolios.

A project is an assignment with a measurable goal and limited time and resources available to accomplish it.

A task is an assignment with a measurable goal and limited time and resources available to accomplish it.

The difference between a project and a task is perspective. Many people think of a project as the whole work and a task as part of a project. However, a small project can be a single task. A large project can have tasks within it so large that those tasks are projects in their own right.

A task-oriented project portfolio is a portfolio of small projects, each consisting of a small number of tasks. Each project in the portfolio is treated as a single task to help schedule and manage the work.

The projects in the task-oriented project portfolio are generally small. If it were not for the number of them, and for the regular work that has to be accomplished, these tasks would be a minor problem.

Professional project management concepts usually are not applied to simple tasks, to avoid overkill. The tasks do not need that level of technique to manage them effectively. However, when task-oriented small projects pile up, you will benefit from using selected project management concepts.

A FOUR-STEP TECHNIQUE FOR MANAGING THE TASK-ORIENTED PROJECT PORTFOLIO

Task-oriented portfolio management takes time-management techniques to the next level. It assumes you already know basic concepts of time management and have managed to apply at least some of them in your work.

Step 1: Establish a Project Control System

When projects come irregularly and frequently on top of your regular work, you need an effective mechanism to keep track of them. One powerful option is to design a project control worksheet. You can create your own, or use the version provided in Figure 2.1.

Properly managing each of your projects includes making sure you have all the data organized and accessible. Take your time to do this right. By drawing together all the information you need into a single place, you gain the ability to prioritize, look realistically at your productivity requirements, and control more easily the performance of the work.

The project control worksheet shows the information you need to gather on each project. Do not feel restricted by the size of the form, or feel obligated to fill it. The amount of information you need necessarily varies by the type of project and project conditions.

You must answer these questions about the project.

Who is going to do each project (if not you)?

How long will each project take (total work and calendar time)?

How much will the project cost (use of resources as well as actual dollar)?

What are the deliverables and outcomes of the project? (What does it have to do?)

What is the relative priority of the project (in relation to everything else you must do)?

To use this system, complete a project control worksheet as soon as you are assigned any project. You may not have all the information at the outset. If you do not, complete what you can and know you will have to gather the rest of the information before you can begin work.

Keep your project control worksheets together in a file, so you can track your total project load at any time. Later you will learn how to use calendaring techniques to move from the project control worksheet to the work of your project.

Prioritizing (and Reprioritizing as Needed) Your Projects

One of the differences between the plate spinning act and real life is that, in the act, all the plates have equal value, but, in real life, some plates are fine china and others merely melamine. If you cannot keep all the plates in the air, let the melamine drop. You cannot manage multiple projects successfully unless you prioritize them correctly.

A powerful formula for priority management is:

I × U = S

In this formula, you assign a number (usually from one to three, with one being the highest) for how important (I) the work is. Assign another number (also from one to three, with one being the highest) for how urgent (U) the work is. Multiply the numbers together to get the success (S) rating, which will be between one and nine. The lowest success ratings confirm your highest priorities.

Measuring Importance

Your multiple projects have differing degrees of importance. Importance is a measure of value, of payoff.

One method of deciding the level of importance is to imagine that you do not do the project. What would be different if you chose not to do it at all? What benefits would you lose? What are the negative results? If little is affected by not doing the project, it is not important.

What is important also depends on your goals. The same projects are not important to everyone.

Follow these steps to effective goal setting (see Figure 2.2).

1. Establish a mission.
2. Define your goals.
3. Set your objectives.
4. Plan your activities.
5. Measure the results.

Mission. First, your mission dictates what is important. Why are you in business? Why does your department exist? Why are you here? Missions can be organizational, departmental, individual, and personal.

Goals. Effective goals come from well-defined missions. What are the most important steps to take to help achieve or advance a mission? Goals and projects are never ends in themselves, only means to an end. If you achieve the wrong goal, and achieve it brilliantly, you still have failed. Why does Carolyn need to research a new health insurance carrier? It might be to save money, or it might be to increase coverage for employees, or it might be to eliminate certain restrictions, or it might to replace the current carrier who is refusing to renew coverage. The goal will determine Carolyn’s ultimate strategy.

Objectives. Objectives are the specific criteria assigned to the goal to measure progress. Depending on the reason Carolyn needs to find new health insurance coverage, she may establish different criteria for her search, change her deadline to accomplish the goal, and change the priority of this project compared with others.

Activities. Activities are the action steps in the project. What exactly must be done? What are the interim and final deadlines? Who will complete each portion of the project?

Results. The payoff of the project comes if accomplishing it made progress toward your mission. If Carolyn’s goal is to save money with the new carrier, she can measure whether she succeeded. If Carolyn is trying to increase the coverage offered to staff, she can measure whether she succeeded.

Measuring Urgency

Multiple projects have differing degrees of urgency (U). Urgency is a measure of time pressure.

One method of deciding the level of urgency is to imagine postponing the project until after its official deadline. What would be different? What benefits would you forego? What are the consequences of not meeting the deadline?

While urgency is significant in organizations, urgency addiction is detrimental. That is what happens when people get too focused on time pressure and not involved enough with value. For example, some people who go through college seem to learn one lesson: when to start writing term papers. If the lesson is “wait until the night before,” and you carry that habit into the workplace, you may suffer from urgency addiction. Do you tell people, “I work best under pressure?” If you do not have enough crises in your life, do you create some?

Urgency stimulates the body’s production of adrenaline. Adrenaline is a drug, as is speed or cocaine. People can become dependent on the rush, the excitement of going all out to meet a deadline.

Successful project professionals need to move beyond urgency addiction. Preplanning and good organization reduce urgency.

Legitimate urgency factors are part of good project planning. If there is a reason why now is better than later, do it now. Avoid unnecessary urgency. The best way is to head off problems before they get out of hand.

Rank the urgency of a project as follows:

Urgent 1 = Today or sooner!

Urgent 2 = Soon, within a week or two.

Urgent 3 = Flexible, can fit into schedule.

Urgency alone is a poor indicator of priority. Many things are urgent—if you do not do them today, you lose the option to do them at all—but they are not important.

For example, every single telephone call is urgent. If you do not pick up that receiver when the telephone rings, you will not talk to that caller at that time. Only a handful of calls are important.

Many important things are not urgent. When you take a seminar does not help you get a promotion, but you will not get the promotion until you take that seminar. The seminar is important (it has value) but not urgent (there is no time pressure). Make sure you prioritize your tasks, considering both importance and urgency. In the event of a tie, choose the more important task. Use the Project/Goal Planning Worksheet in Figure 2.3 to determine the importance and urgency of your tasks; then prioritize them.

Step 3: Determine Available Time and Resources

Carolyn has both a full-time job to do and multiple projects that she must somehow fit into her schedule. While a management professional is no stranger to overtime, she must examine causes, cures, and options if overtime is an uncontrollable and regular part of her life.

Virtually every book and seminar on time management and organization recommends that you keep a time log (see Figure 2.4) for a few weeks to measure how you are spending your time. Many times, lives are filled with time wasters you do not even recognize. One rule for self-improvement is if you do not know you have a problem, it is hard to motivate yourself to fix it. You may be amazed at how much you can increase your productivity once you discover how you are wasting your time.

After you have kept the time log for at least a week (preferably two weeks), add up how you are spending your time. You may find some real surprises.

Do not feel inadequate if you have some entries under personal business or chatting/gossiping. Face it. No one is 100 percent focused and on target all the time. Several management books suggest that a productive employee works fifty minutes in each hour, with ten minutes for relaxing, chatting, personal calls, and going to the bathroom. If your nonwork items are within the ten-minute-per-hour range, do not worry.

If, on the other hand, you are wasting three hours a day in nonproductive business and you have to work overtime hours each day to keep current, cut some of the time wasters to reduce the amount of overtime you are putting in, and still accomplish all the work.

Look also for time wasters in the job. Are your telephone calls coming so frequently that you cannot get five uninterrupted minutes to think? Are people always camped on your doorstep waiting to see you? Are you trapped in endless meetings? Good time-management books and seminars offer strategies for coping with on-the-job productivity killers. Get them under control so that you will be able to focus on your own high-payoff activities.

The value in doing steps one through three is that they organize you and encourage your thinking about the projects you have to do and scheduling them into the regular day. Even when you have analyzed your work and controlled your time wasters, your workday will still consist of three categories:

regular duties

crisis management and problem solving

strategic reserve time.

Regular duties. A significant part of your time log will be devoted to your regular duties. These are ongoing nonproject activities. You need to figure what part of your workweek is consumed with taking care of regular duties. If the percentage is too high (It can be 100 percent!), you need to strategize ways to make it possible to perform project-related work.

To find more time for projects, remember that within regular duties there are priorities. Some regular duties may need to be postponed, delegated, or even dropped to make time for project work.

Regular duties can be subdivided into time-fixed and time-flexible duties. Scheduled meetings are time-fixed, as is the production of the weekly report. Work that needs to be done but can be shifted within a day or week to help organize priorities is time-flexible.

Crisis management and problem-solving time. Good project management skills reduce the number of crises in your job, but they do not eliminate crises entirely. For the average professional, between 40 and 60 percent of the workday is uncontrollable. Carolyn must deal with walk-in visitors, randomly occurring personnel problems, and a variety of daily issues that cannot be scheduled in advance. Based on your time-log, figure out what percentage of your workweek is taken up by these unforeseen and uncontrollable situations.

Again, if the percentage is too high to allow enough project time, you can take the following steps. For a two-week period, write down all the different emergencies that land on your desk. Now examine them for common causes.

If, for example, Carolyn spends three hours over two weeks helping people interpret their health insurance plans, then it is clear that the contract conditions are confusing. A summary memorandum clearing up confusing points, a briefing on health insurance procedures for all staff, or setting office hours to address health insurance problems would reduce or even eliminate this time-draining situation. Many problems happen because there is an underlying situation. If the underlying situation is fixed, those problems will go away.

How do you find the time? You must, even if it requires overtime on a one-shot basis. A famous office cartoon reads, “When you’re up to your rear-end in alligators, it’s hard to remember your original objective was to drain the swamp!”

You cannot afford to forget your objective. If your work is overloading you, you must take steps to uncover the causes of the overload. Otherwise you are condemned to stay in your current situation.

Strategic reserve time (SRT). SRT is what you have once you have budgeted for regular duties, crisis management, and problem solving. It is the only opportunity you have for project work and for cleaning up some of the underlying situations that currently plague you. Follow the time-management strategies described to maximize your SRT. Then you can allocate time to complete your projects and improve your work.

Step 4: Put Your Projects in Your Calendar—and Do Them

What if you end up with an hour or two each day of SRT? That is quite a lot of time if you know the law of the slight edge.

Imagine you are in a car on the interstate. The car next to you is going only fifty-four miles per hour. You want to pass the car, but you cannot go faster than fifty-five. That is frustrating. You feel you are creeping as you pass; yet, in only one hour, you are an entire mile ahead.

Imagine you have only an hour a day of SRT. It does not seem like much time. What real difference can you make in your life in a single hour?

What if you spend an hour a day, seven days a week (count your personal goals along with your professional goals), working on long-range projects that lead to improvement in your situation?

In one year, you will spend 365 hours. At eight hours per working day, that is a little over forty-five working days. That is over two months at a rate of twenty working days per month. This is the law of the slight edge.

Two months. Imagine you have the next two months completely free to work on projects, both professional and personal, which would make a difference. Where would you be in a year?

Break your projects into tasks. If your SRT is an hour or two a day, you have five to ten hours a week of project time. You need to break each project into action steps, each step an hour or so in length. Schedule them into your calendar.

For this purpose, it is appropriate to take a weekly or monthly approach, rather than a daily approach, to calendar your tasks. You may have some days with so many meetings and regular assignments that it is hopeless to plan any project work. Other days are much lighter in regular work, and you have more time available for project activities.

Use the Planning Your Priorities Worksheet (see Figure 2.6) to break each project into action steps.

Put the tasks in your calendar. Every professional needs a calendar management system. It can be a large wall calendar, a daily planner or organizer, or a computer software program (if your work keeps you primarily at your desk and your computer can be on all the time).

Tip! To stay organized, use one calendar and use it to schedule everything, both professional and personal, in your life.

Look at Carolyn’s schedule for May. After keeping a time log for three weeks, she discovers several things she can do to maximize her SRT. After she takes all the steps available to her, she finds that her regular work, including paperwork, meetings, filing, and so on, absorbs about three hours of her day. Problem solving, responding to others, takes up nearly 50 percent of her schedule, totaling four hours per day. That is seven out of eight hours committed. On average, she has an hour each day, or five hours each week, of SRT.

In the month of May, Carolyn therefore has twenty-three hours of project time. After reviewing her projects, she selects the three projects with the highest priority and schedules them first: 1) Buy a new health insurance policy; 2) Start upgrading the payroll system (since accounting and data processing departments will have to do most of the work); and, 3) Arrange for computer skills training for the new administrative assistants.

Using a Project/Goal Planning Worksheet (see Figure 2.7), Carolyn lists and prioritizes her projects. On the form, she also does the breakdown of steps for the first of her projects.

Now, it is time to put the projects on her calendar. The monthly calendar overview from Carolyn’s personal organizer is shown in Figure 2.8.

Carolyn first schedules her repetitive work tasks, including the weekly preparation of payroll timesheets each Wednesday, the weekly personnel meeting each Thursday, and the end-of-month report. She also schedules one of the problem-solving issues, a grievance hearing on Monday, May 13. (Her daily schedules will list other regular duties as they arise.)

Carolyn knows that her month will contain emergencies for which she has not yet planned, so she wants to leave herself a reasonable margin to avoid overload. You will notice that she schedules most of her project-related activities for days early in the month. Currently, she does not have any project work scheduled after May 28. That allows a safety margin if the project work takes longer than expected or if emergencies exceed expectations for the month. If she does not need the safety margin, she will use the time to start her next projects.

One task for the health insurance project is to review all the brochures and contracts of the different policies. Carolyn estimates it will take her about three hours to do this. Since her SRT is an hour a day, she spreads this work over three days (May 13–15) and makes her final decision on the fourth day (May 16).

Carolyn now has a working schedule for the month. It is an ambitious amount of work but, with a good plan, she will succeed.

Verify task completion. One of the psychological advantages of breaking your projects into bite-sized tasks is that it becomes much easier to do each part. It feels more manageable; you feel more productive.

Now, Carolyn needs to focus each day and each week on accomplishing her scheduled work. She needs to verify that she has met deadlines and completed her work.

After a few months’ experience with the new system, Carolyn feels far more in control of her work. She says:

Look, it’s still difficult. I have a demanding job and a lot to do. But once my tasks are planned and in my schedule, I don’t have to keep worrying about these huge items looming over my head. I can take it one day at a time, one project at a time, and get it done.

EXERCISE

Complete Your Own Project Priority and Planning Worksheets

1. Start by listing the current projects for which you are responsible.

   

2. Take the top three priorities based on your I x U = S ratings and complete the Project/Goal Planning Worksheet.

   

3. For your top-priority project, complete the Planning Your Priorities Worksheet, listing action steps (in one-hour segments) and deadlines.

   

4. Put each in your calendar—and get at least one project accomplished this month.