Juggling Projects

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Risk Management   Schedule Management   Scheduling  

Life should work out so that project managers are assigned to one project and when that ends, another project is right there waiting to start off. That way, no project is starting without a project manager’s full attention and no one is ever sitting around waiting on work.

Unfortunately, life rarely works out so cleanly. Oftentimes, projects are all happening at the same time and there are not enough project managers to go around. We may end up working on multiple projects simultaneously, juggling quite a few different things in the air all at once. This is not easy, and those times should be approached very carefully so that no balls get dropped and projects do not end up being left out in the cold.

Identify the Risk
One of the first steps is to identify the risk(s) involved in assigning someone to multiple projects. The risk is that tasks and issues will not get executed in a timely manner because work will be overlapping. Even if the different roles are not considered full-time positions, there will be work that needs to be done simultaneously and both projects cannot be the priority for the individual assigned to both. This risk amplifies if the project manager is working on multiple projects. That means that their time is divided, and neither project is getting the attention that it needs.

Delegate Work
If people are already overbooked with …

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