Recently, hearing the project manager in the group complain that there are more than 10 projects working on at the same time, the work is busy and disorganized, which makes him particularly stressed.
For project managers, multiple projects are the norm. From the working level, not only do we grab resources between projects, resource conflicts, and unreasonable resource allocation, but it is difficult to ensure quality and quantity in the face of complicated work. As a result, managing and executing multiple projects is more challenging for all stakeholders involved in the project.
Multi-project management, what's the difficulty?
We summarize the difficult problems often encountered by project managers in the process of multi-project management, which can be roughly divided into three categories:
1. It is difficult to manage the project schedule
When multiple projects are running at the same time, the project manager has more projects on hand, and the management and monitoring of each project progress is not so fast, and it is difficult to detect the risk of schedule delay in time. For project executives, work tasks and schedules are also saturated, and if the team is not productive, it is easy to delay the progress of the entire project.
2. Enterprise resource allocation is difficult
When working on multiple projects at the same time, proper resource allocation has always been a challenge. Due to limited resources, there will be overlap and overlap of resources between projects, how to allocate and adjust resources, how to schedule team members with cross-projects, etc., are all problems that will arise in the operation of multiple projects.
3. Team communication and collaboration are difficult
Effective communication is necessary for the success of a project. Establish communication channels within and outside the project team to quickly and accurately transmit information and achieve the coordination of all members; It is an important task of the project manager to clarify the responsibilities of the project members. In the process of multi-project management, there are more things and people to communicate, which also increases the difficulty of communication and collaboration.
How to manage progress when multiple projects are carried out at the same time?
First, grasp the key points of efficient project management:
1. Clear and agreed project objectives
Ensure that every effort in the project is contributing to this goal.
2. Refined task decomposition
The main point is that each subtask should not exceed a week, and clear subtask goals, time points, and deliverables.
3. Resource allocation with time guarantee and ability to execute
Although some projects allocate resources, they cannot ensure the effective input of resources, which is a very important reason why projects cannot be promoted.
4. Daily inspection, weekly inspection of project progress and submissions
The question of how to hold group meetings efficiently can be found on Zhihu, it is recommended to take a look.
5. Adjust task objectives, resources, and progress according to the inspection situation, and modify the plan
This is a test of the project manager's level.
Second, with certain hardware conditions:
1. Standardization and process
Develop specifications for each job (it is painful to establish at first, but once effective processes and specifications are established, it will have great benefits for replicating successful projects in the future, increasing work efficiency and lowering the threshold of resource capacity). In particular, attention should be paid to the cooperation of design, testing and configuration management, and the documentation manual work should be started early.
2. According to the configuration management specification
From the hardware platform and configuration management, ensure that the project team can effectively collaborate and reduce manual intervention.
Third, with certain software conditions:
1. Effective communication
Make sure everyone understands what their mission is. Especially newcomers, they are often afraid of losing face and doing it hard without understanding the requirements.
2. Ability training
Coaching and training for those who are not competent. Don't assign tasks to people who are not capable of completing them, if the team members get the job they are not competent, it is easy to grind and feel a sense of accomplishment, so it is very important to arrange the right tasks for the right people.
Multi-project management is very important is how to ensure the effective investment of resources, in the project team, one person across multiple projects must not be too many, otherwise the project efficiency will be low.
When multiple projects are carried out at the same time, it is also necessary to clearly distinguish the priorities of the projects, grasp the main points and biggest risks at the current stage of each project, and think clearly about the countermeasures in advance.
Fourth, analyze from the perspective of project members
For project team members, if there are multiple projects in parallel at the same time, learn to manage their time.
For example, software development multi-project parallelism, each project may be in different stages, some in the requirements stage, some in the design stage, some have submitted tests to modify bugs, some are maintaining code, in general, it is to master their biological clock, work regularly, and assign appropriate work.
1. Master your biological clock for the day
What time is the most creative, what time is most productive, when is it easy to get tired, and then divide the work well.
2. Leave the time for continuous and efficient projects in the design stage
Because consistency of thought is important during the design phase, it is difficult to pick it up again after being interrupted, and it is necessary to ensure that you can concentrate during this time without being disturbed.
3. Fixed time every day to modify bugs and maintain code
FIXING BUGS REQUIRES TALKING TO THE TEST, AND TRY TO CHOOSE A TIME WHEN SOME FATIGUE IS EASILY INTERRUPTED, SUCH AS BEFORE LEAVING WORK AFTER 4 PM.
4. 10-30 minutes before the end of work is usually the meeting time
5. Don't trust your memory
Write down the work done one by one and, if possible, your thoughts at the time.
For example, if you have two designs working at the same time, you often need to switch ideas, it's easy to make mistakes, write down each point, and quickly look at what you did before switching to another job. This works well for trivial and jumpy tasks, such as code maintenance.
6. Think about whether different projects have commonalities.
If there is a commonality, the reusable part is extracted and independently reusable module.
7. Work is prioritized
According to the important and urgent, urgent, important, ranking, how to sort according to the task situation to consider themselves, in short, 80% of the time should do important things, 20% of the time to do other or urgent things, don't put the cart before the horse.
Finally, the control of the project schedule, judging whether things are important or not, depends on the contribution to the project as a whole, not whether it is important to the individual itself, so it goes back to the beginning sentence: ensure that every work of the project is contributing to the achievement of this goal.
8. Be good at using tools
There are many project management tools on the market that are only suitable for specific industries, with high barriers to use, high costs, lack of flexibility, etc. There are also people who use tables to manage projects, but there are also limitations, which do not facilitate task flow and require the use of functions and conditional formatting.
Today, I will share with you the new function of Weixin project management, advantages: flexible customization through low-code development, online access without download, low threshold for use, no choice of industry, each project can be used flexibly. Managers can see the overall progress at a glance, and project members synchronize tasks in real time, control progress, locate problems, and deliver on time through different views. Disadvantages: No ready-made templates, need to be customized.
01. Many people are good at coordination, easy to get rid of without quarrelling
Many people use instant chat tools to assign tasks and communicate project progress, resulting in messy information and difficult to track and manage in the long run. Weixin project management, support online collaboration, and invite team members to join by sharing links; Managers create tasks and designate collaborators to make task scheduling clearer. Turn repeated instant communication into efficient task assignment and progress tracking.
02. Complex projects are simplified and the recorded information is more comprehensive
Through task decomposition, Zhixin Project Management turns complex projects into executable task lists and visually monitors task progress. Support customizing fields according to different project situations, including text, number, options, collaborators, dates and other data types, and the project situation is clear at a glance.
03. View filtering, at a glance
Zhixin project management supports adding multiple views and quickly switching to view project information in different dimensions. Set filters as needed, and save as a personal view without affecting the rest of your team. It also provides a board like a post-it wall, which can be arranged according to progress or grouping, clearly showing the structure of the entire project, and making trivial things orderly at once.
If it is a long-term task, you need to continuously update the progress. Weixin project management also supports Gantt chart display to make project progress reporting more convincing.
04. How to use the project management tool of Weaving Letter
1. Browser access;
2. Apply for trial online;
Content Expansion:
Essential lessons learned in multi-project management
Multi-project management has become a development trend, but the immature project management environment has brought a lot of trouble to project managers. So, is there a way to save project managers from their current predicament? Here are some lessons learned from the perspective of project managers and project implementers:
First, from the perspective of the project manager
The project manager is a soul figure in the project management process, not only formulating scientific project plans, real-time effective management and monitoring, but also need to do a good job in the reasonable allocation of project resources. Therefore, in addition to solid project management knowledge, you also need to leverage some efficient tools:
1. Expand the professional dimension
To do a good job in project management, project managers need to have the ability to master not only project management knowledge, but also technology, products and other professional knowledge. Learning is just a path to mastering project management knowledge, and if you want to achieve integration, you must always acquire it in practice. I hope the following methods will inspire you:
- Gather and refine useful information. Collect and extract useful information from complex information to enrich the database.
- Think and summarize.
- Practice. Apply theoretical knowledge to projects and carry out practical operations.
- Internalized use. Internalize project experience by summarizing, reviewing, etc., so as to achieve proficiency in application.
2. Establish a global view of the project
The project manager is a key factor in the success of the project, and the main job is to promote the smooth progress of the project, so it is necessary to establish a good overall view of the project.
Generally speaking, the specific idea of project management is to cut the whole project into five processes of "start-plan-execute-monitor-close", and each process group has an independent work module, and then in each link and event, the "start-plan-execute-monitor-finish" step to carry out the work, and continue to cycle. If you don't know the idea of project management, it means that there is no overall view of project management, and naturally there is no way to complete the work well.
3. Cultivate risk management awareness
Risk management awareness is not a quick development of the ability and requires at least 3-5 years of professional immersion. When we have accumulated enough cases and the mental model has been strengthened through training, we can identify possible risks in the project process and design procedures to control risks. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize and review previous projects, accumulate experience to enrich the case database, and focus on cultivating the logical thinking ability of the project, which is necessary to cultivate the awareness of risk management.
4. Leverage project management tools
In addition to solid project management capabilities, project managers can rely on project management tools to achieve more results with less and perfectly cope with the challenges caused by multiple projects at the same time.
The use of project management tools not only increases the productivity and efficiency of teams, but also prepares organizations for changes brought about by high-impact projects. To get the best out of their projects, project managers can take advantage of tools for business intelligence analysis, business requirements, change management and project management, as well as a large number of forms and templates. Handling analysis, requirements, changes, and tracking project progress with the most appropriate toolset will help project managers perform tasks in the best possible condition.
Second, from the perspective of the executor
Multiple projects occur simultaneously, and more tasks are received for project members and span multiple projects. To ensure that every task is completed on time, it is important to improve work efficiency. Project implementers can achieve the purpose of improving work efficiency through the following ways:
1. Improve communication efficiency
Active communication, timely feedback and efficient implementation are extremely important in the project management process. However, in actual project management, there are indeed many thorny problems, there are many personnel, many departments, and it is indeed difficult to communicate. In practice, project managers spend a lot of time communicating with customers and team members, so learning communication skills can not only improve communication efficiency, but also save time.
2. Learn to summarize and think
Are there any commonalities between the different projects? Do you have materials or experience that can be reused? Summarizing effective project information and using it can reduce detours.
3. Rational use of resources
Project work emphasizes teamwork and cooperation, and reasonable use of corporate resources and contacts in work can improve work efficiency and project success rate.
Simultaneous multi-project has become an inevitable development trend of project management, in the face of complex and changeable project needs, project managers must pay attention to the cultivation of project management ability and literacy. The above is a personal opinion, if you have different views, welcome to leave a message to discuss.