Can anyone give me some direction on managing multiple projects with the same resources? I have 12 core engineers that move from project to project and I am having trouble with a master schedule.
Thank you! Mark Saving Changes...
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George JucanManaging Partner| Organizational Perfomance Enablers NetworkWoodbridge, Ontario, Canada
As a true consultant, I’ll start with “it depends”. How you deal with multiple projects / shared resources depends at least on the number of projects, their size/complexity, importance relative to each other and delivery milestones. It also depends on the quality of the resources you have, not only professional but also their experience in multi-tasking environments.
I will list below some advice from my personal experience, which might be useful to get you going:
1. Track each project separately to have a clear perspective on each individual one. Trying to merge all the tasks in the same plan will get you to a unmanageable “monster” plan, and you will be spending more time updating the plan than managing the projects.
2. Manage the interdependencies between projects to avoid resources overload. The best way is to use a Project Portfolio Management software that allows “out-of-the-box” for cross-projects dependencies and resources sharing. If you have individual plans and you manually manage the interdependencies you’re in for a tough ride – prepare yourself for long hours cross-checking the plans.
3. Unless you have a team of people used to multi-task, don’t assign tasks of less then 2 days. Switching from one project to another takes a ramp-up (even if it’s only minutes for each switch), which is basically unproductive time for all projects. It is true that during the 2+ days task for one project they may do some minor stuff for the other project (send an email or read a document) which is not properly tracked, but in the long run it will balance off between projects.
4. Do not overload resources and do not plan for overtime. It is really bad for the staff morale to see themselves allocated 300% for the next 3 months. They will know from the beginning that there is no way they can deliver as per plan, so they will not even try. But if they see that you only assign them work that is feasible, and you defend them in front of the executives that push for “more, faster”, they will go the extra mile to at least meet the plan.
5. Last but certainly not least, get executives to prioritize the projects importance. Beware of “all are equally important, I trust you to make the right decision on case by case basis”. This only deflects their responsibility, so your head will roll at the first sign of trouble. You will need to make instantaneous decision for resources reallocation between projects. If a “top” project is in trouble, you can move in resources from the other, even if this might jeopardize them. But if a “lower” project is in trouble, you never risk a more important project (even if it has some buffer) to try to salvage the less important one. However, the ranking decision is not yours to make, even if some executives might try to push it to you. It is a strategic decision (involving clients, revenue, market position, liabilities, contracts etc), and a project manager does not have all needed information, nor the authority, to make.
I hope the above will be of some help in managing multiple projects sharing the same team of people.
