Recently, I heard the project manager in the group complain that there are more than 10 projects in hand at the same time, and the work is in a hurry and disorganized, which makes him very stressed.
For project managers, it is normal for multiple projects to advance in parallel. From the perspective of work, it is not only difficult to ensure quality and quantity in the face of complicated work, not only the competition for resources among various projects, resource conflicts, and unreasonable resource allocation. Therefore, the management and execution of multi-projects is more challenging for all the stakeholders involved in the project.
Multi-project management, where is the difficulty?
We have summarized the thorny problems often encountered by project managers in the process of multi-project management, which can be roughly divided into three types:
1. Difficulty in project progress management
When multiple projects are running at the same time, the project manager has more projects, and the management and monitoring of the progress of each project is not so fast. It is difficult to detect the risk of progress delay in time. For project executives, work tasks and schedules are also very saturated. If the team's work efficiency is not high, it is easy to delay the progress of the entire project.
2. It is difficult to allocate enterprise resources
Proper resource allocation has always been a challenge when working on multiple projects at the same time. Due to limited resources, there will be resource overlap and overlap between projects. How to allocate and adjust resources well, and how to schedule team members with cross-projects, etc., are all problems that will arise during the operation of multi-projects.
3. Difficulty in team communication and cooperation
Effective communication is essential for a successful project. It is an important job of the project manager to establish communication channels within the project team and the external environment, to transmit information quickly and accurately, and to achieve coordination among members; to make project members clarify their respective responsibilities. In the process of multi-project management, there are more matters and people to be communicated, which also increases the difficulty of communication and collaboration.
How to manage the progress of multiple projects at the same time?
1. Grasp the key points of effective project management:
1. Clear and agreed project goals
Make sure that every piece of work on the project contributes to that goal.
2. Refined task decomposition
The main point is that each subtask should not exceed one week, and the subtask goals, time points, and deliverables should be clearly defined.
3. Resource allocation with time guarantee and ability to execute
Although resources are allocated to some projects, the effective investment of resources cannot be guaranteed. This is a very important reason why the project 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, I suggest you check it out.
5. Adjust task objectives, resources, and progress according to the inspection situation, and modify the plan
This is a test of the level of the project manager.
Second, have certain hardware conditions:
1. Standardization and process
Formulate specifications for each job (it is painful to establish for the first time, but once effective processes and specifications are established, it will be of great benefit to replicating successful projects in the future, which can improve work efficiency and reduce the threshold of resource capabilities). Special attention should be paid to the cooperation of design, testing and configuration management, and the work on documentation and manuals should be started as early as possible.
2. According to the configuration management specification
From the perspective of hardware platform and configuration management, the project team can effectively collaborate and reduce manual intervention.
Three, with certain software conditions:
1. Effective communication
Make sure everyone understands what their mission is. Especially the newcomers, who are often afraid of losing face, bite the bullet and do it without understanding the requirements.
2. Capacity training
Provide mentoring and training for those who are not competent. Don't assign tasks to people who are incapable of completing them. If team members get incompetent jobs, they will easily lose their skills and feel no sense of accomplishment. Therefore, it is very important to assign suitable tasks to the right people.
The most important thing in multi-project management is how to ensure the effective investment of resources. In the project team, one person must not cross multiple projects, otherwise the project efficiency will be low.
To carry out multiple projects at the same time, it is necessary to distinguish the priorities of the projects, grasp the main points and the biggest risks of each project at the current stage, and think clearly about the countermeasures in advance.
4. Analysis from the perspective of project members
For project team members, if there are multiple projects in parallel at the same time, they must learn to manage their own time .
For example, in the parallel development of multiple projects in software development, the stages of each project may be different. Some are in the requirements stage, some are in the design stage, some have submitted tests and are modifying bugs, and some are maintaining codes. In other words, it means mastering your own biological clock, regular working hours, and assigning suitable jobs.
1. Master your biological clock of the day
When is the most creative time, when is the most productive time, when is it easy to get tired, and then assign the work well.
2. Leave the contiguous and efficient time for projects in the design stage
Because the continuity of thinking in the design stage is very important, it is difficult to pick up after being interrupted. It is necessary to ensure that you can concentrate during this period without being disturbed.
3. Fixed time every day to modify BUG and maintain code
Modifying the BUG requires communicating with the tester, and try to choose a time that is somewhat tiring and easily interrupted to do this, such as after 4 pm before leaving get off work.
4. 10-30 minutes before get off work is usually the meeting time
5. Don’t trust your memory
Write down the work done one by one, and if possible, write down your thoughts at the time.
For example, there are two design activities being done at the same time, often need to switch ideas, it is easy to make mistakes, write down every point, and quickly browse what has been done 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 are commonalities, extract the reusable parts and independently form reusable modules.
7. Prioritize work
Sort by important and urgent, urgent, important, and how to sort according to the task situation. In short, 80% of the time should be done for important things, and 20% of the time should be done for other or urgent things. Don’t put the cart before the horse. up.
Finally, the control of project progress, judging whether something is important or not depends on the contribution to the project as a whole, not whether it is important to the individual itself, so I go back to the sentence at the beginning: ensure that every work of the project is for the realization of contribute to this goal.
8. Good at using tools
There are many project management tools on the market that are only applicable to specific industries, with high barriers to use, high cost, and lack of flexibility. Some people also use tables to manage projects, but there are limitations, and tasks cannot be transferred conveniently. Functions and conditional formatting need to be used.
Today I would like to share with you the new function of weaving letter project management . Advantages: flexible customization through low-code development, online access without downloading, low threshold for use, no industry selection, and various projects can be used flexibly. The manager can see the overall progress at a glance, and the project members can synchronize tasks in real time, control the progress, locate problems, and deliver on time through different views. Disadvantage: There is no ready-made template, which needs to be customized.
01. Many people and many things are easy to coordinate, easy to handle without quarreling
Many people use instant messaging tools to assign tasks and communicate project progress. If things go on like this, the information is messy and scattered, and it is difficult to track and manage. Zhixin project management supports online collaboration and invites team members to join by sharing links; managers create tasks and designate collaborators to make task arrangements clearer. Turn repeated instant communication into efficient task assignment and progress tracking.
02. Simplify complex projects and record information more comprehensively
Zhixin project management transforms complex projects into executable task lists through task decomposition, and visually monitors task progress. Supports custom setting fields according to different project situations, including data types such as text, numbers, options, collaborators, and dates, so that the project situation is clear at a glance.
03. View screening, clear at a glance
Zhixin project management supports adding multiple views and quickly switching to view project information in different dimensions. Set filter criteria as needed and save as a personal view without affecting other team members. It also provides a kanban like a post-it wall, which can be arranged according to progress or in groups, clearly showing the structure of the entire project, and making trivial things orderly at once.
If it is a task with a relatively long period, the progress needs to be continuously updated. Zhixin project management also supports the display of Gantt charts , making project progress reports more convincing.
Content expansion:
Must-learn experience in multi-project management
Multi-project management has become a development trend, but the immature project management environment has brought a lot of troubles to project managers. So, is there a suitable way to rescue project managers from the current predicament? From the perspective of project managers and project executors, we will share some experiences and methods:
1. From the perspective of the project manager
The project manager is a soul in the project management process. He not only formulates scientific project plans, real-time and effective management and monitoring, but also needs to do a good job in the reasonable allocation of project resources. Therefore, in addition to having solid project management knowledge, you also need to use some efficient tools:
1. Expand the professional dimension
To do a good job in project management, the project manager needs to have the ability of "one-size-fits-all", not only to master project management knowledge, but also to master professional knowledge such as technology and products. Learning is just the path to mastering project management knowledge. If you want to achieve mastery, you must always get it in practice. I hope the following methods can inspire you:
- Collect and refine useful information. Collect and extract useful information from complicated information to enrich the database.
- Think and summarize.
- practice. Apply theoretical knowledge to projects and carry out practical operations.
- internalized use. By summarizing and reviewing, etc., the project experience is internalized so as to achieve proficient application.
2. Establish a global view of the project
The project manager is a key factor for the success of the project. 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 entire project into five processes of "initiation-planning-execution-monitoring-closing", each process group has independent work modules, and then in each link and event, use The "Initiate-Plan-Execute-Monitor-Close" steps work, and the cycle continues. If you don't know the idea of project management, it means that you don't have an 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 an ability that can be developed quickly, 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, summarizing and reviewing previous projects, accumulating experience to enrich the case base, and focusing on cultivating project logical thinking ability are very necessary for cultivating risk management awareness.
4. Leverage project management tools
In addition to solid project management capabilities, project managers can use project management tools to achieve twice the result with half the effort and perfectly cope with the problems caused by simultaneous multi-projects.
The use of project management tools can not only improve the productivity and efficiency of the team, but also prepare the organization for the changes brought about by high-impact projects. To get the best out of projects, project managers can leverage tools for business intelligence analysis, business requirements, change management, and project management, as well as extensive forms and templates. Using the most appropriate toolset to handle analysis, requirements, changes and track project progress will help project managers execute tasks at their best.
2. From the point of view of the executor
Multi-projects are carried out at the same time. For project members, more tasks will be received and span multiple projects. To ensure that every task is completed on time, it is very important to improve work efficiency. Project executors can achieve the purpose of improving work efficiency through the following channels:
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 and departments, and it is indeed difficult to communicate. In actual work, project managers spend a lot of time communicating with customers and communicating with team members. Therefore, learning communication skills can not only improve communication efficiency, but also save time.
2. Learn to summarize and think
Are there any commonalities among different projects? Are there materials or experiences that can be reused? Summarizing the effective information of the project and using it can avoid detours.
3. Rational use of resources
Project work emphasizes teamwork and cooperation. Reasonable use of enterprise resources and contacts in work can improve work efficiency and project success rate.
It is an inevitable development trend of project management to carry out multiple projects at the same time. In the face of complex and changeable project requirements, project managers must pay attention to the cultivation of project management ability and quality. The above is my personal opinion. If you have different opinions, please leave a message to discuss.