Rebles Guide to PM
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Thinking Commercially: A Skill Every Project Manager Needs (and Can Learn)
Delivering value – real, strategic, measurable value – requires something more than delivering on time and within budget: commercial awareness. Project managers need to drive the commercial impacts of their projects.
It’s not just about spreadsheets and budgets. It’s about understanding how your project contributes to the bigger picture, spotting opportunities, asking better questions, and sometimes challenging assumptions.
Commercial thinking isn’t just for senior leaders or finance teams. It’s something every project manager can, and should, develop.
I’ll share what thinking commercially means in practice, why it matters, and some ideas to help you build your confidence in this area, drawing on concepts from my book, Customer Improvement Selling: Unlocking Commercial Potential in Technical Experts.
The book provides practical frameworks based on insights from behavioural science, commercial best practices, and my own international research. Its goal is to enable employees in technical roles (any non-sales role) to make more meaningful contributions to projects and thereby help drive their commercial impact.
Why project managers need a commercial AIM
To break silos and enable all types of experts in an organisation to contribute to the commercial success of projects, project managers can adopt the commercial AIM mindset: Anticipate needs, Inspire with insight, Mobilise change.
Anticipate needs
Project managers must be proactive in identifying customer needs and market trends. By anticipating these needs, they can develop solutions that address potential challenges before they arise.
This proactive approach ensures that projects are aligned with customer expectations and drive client loyalty and retention.
Inspire with insight
Inspiring stakeholders with valuable insights is crucial for gaining their support and commitment. Project managers can identify key opportunities for customer improvement and communicate these insights effectively.
By doing so, they can inspire different stakeholders to rally around new ideas and drive positive change.
Mobilise change
Mobilising change asks project managers to engage and motivate their teams and stakeholders.
Applying a structure to better understand stakeholder motivations and addressing potential obstacles enables project managers to develop strategies that facilitate smooth transitions and successful project outcomes.
The COSMOS™ Framework: A checklist for commercial impact
The COSMOS framework can be used as a checklist to prepare for commercial impact. It can be applied straight away to help increase commercial impact and outcomes at an individual, group, or organisational level, especially in B2B contexts.
As we saw above, AIM describes the mindset and behaviours that, if combined and put into action, will support customer improvement through implementing the COSMOS framework.
By using both AIM (to drive customer improvement) and COSMOS (as a preparation framework for specific opportunities and customer interactions), project managers will be able to make a noticeable impact on the client experience. As a result, they will also help create opportunities to improve client retention and increase business growth.
The COSMOS framework applies to every commercial context, independent of the size or type of the organisation or the products and services an organisation sells.
It can also easily be used as a preparation tool alongside different sales and delivery methodologies to impact customer improvement at every stage of the sales or delivery process. This framework will help technical experts and all project managers to be less reliant on the knowledge or expertise of salespeople and take ownership of commercial skill development.
The COSMOS Framework: Key components
The COSMOS framework developed in the book consists of six key components:
Context
Understanding the customer's world is the first step in the COSMOS framework. Project managers need to gather information about the customer's environment, challenges, and goals. This context provides a foundation for identifying relevant opportunities for improvement.
Opportunities
Identifying opportunities that can drive customer improvement is crucial for commercial success. Project managers should focus on areas where their solutions can add the most value and develop strategies to capitalise on them.
Stakeholders
Engaging the right stakeholders is essential for driving change. Project managers need to identify who will care about customer improvement and who may resist it. The COSMOS framework provides guidance on stakeholder analysis and engagement, ensuring that all relevant parties are involved in the process.
Motivation
Understanding what motivates stakeholders to support or resist change is key to successful project outcomes. The COSMOS framework helps project managers uncover these motivations and develop strategies to address them. By aligning project goals with stakeholder interests, they can build strong support for their initiatives.
Obstacles (or Objections)
Anticipating and addressing obstacles is critical for smooth project execution. The COSMOS framework encourages project managers to identify potential objections and develop contingency plans. This proactive approach minimises disruptions and keeps projects on track.
Strategy
Developing a clear strategy for achieving commercial outcomes is the final component of the COSMOS framework. Project managers should outline their plans for realising new commercial opportunities and ensuring customer improvement. The framework provides a structured approach to strategy development, making it easier to achieve desired results.
Five valuable reasons for the application of AIM & COSMOS in a project management role
The ideas and tools explained in the book are highly relevant to project management for these 5 reasons:
- Enhancingstakeholderandcustomerengagement: Project managers oversee teams that frequently interact with customers and stakeholders. Understanding how technical experts can contribute to customer improvement efforts helps ensure projects align with business growth and customer satisfaction.
- Strengtheningcross-functionalcollaboration: It’s so important to break down silos between leadership, HR, and project teams. Project managers can leverage this approach to foster better collaboration across departments, ensuring technical teams contribute strategically to commercial success.
- Unlockinghiddencommercialpotential inteams: Technical experts, whether in IT, product development, or legal, often have valuable insights that can improve customer relationships. Project managers can use these frameworks to help their teams recognise and act on customer improvement opportunities.
- Aligningprojects withbusinessgrowth: By integrating commercial awareness into project management, teams move beyond execution to actively contributing to long-term business success. This ensures that projects don’t just meet deadlines but also support sustainable growth and customer retention.
- Addressingglobaltalentchallenges: Sales and marketing skills are among the most in-demand technical skills today. When project managers help their teams develop commercial capabilities, you can reduce reliance on external hiring and strengthening internal talent pipelines.
More information on Customer Improvement Selling can be found on my website, www.customerimprovementselling.com.
Promotional launch May 7-8th, the Kindle version of Customer Improvement Selling will be available to download on Amazon for only £1
This article first appeared on Rebel's Guide to Project Management and can be read here: Thinking Commercially: A Skill Every Project Manager Needs (and Can Learn)
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How to Build a Project Management Office (PMO) Checklist in 12 Steps!
The PMO cycle states that the average PMO lasts 3-5 years and with the amount of requests I am getting for my keynote presentation on how to build a PMO, it is clear that the cycle holds true.
One company might be shutting down a PMO whereas another company could be starting one up. Often times the catalyst for change is the arrival or departure of a major executive. My book, The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down is a top seller on Amazon for a reason!
In this article, I’ll cover the core components that will be immediately useful to you if you are going to start building your PMO.
There are twelve steps to starting or building a PMO. These steps are:
- Start with a plan
- Obtain executive support
- Create PMO staples
- Select 4 P’s of PMO (including methodologies)
- Select PMO model
- Create PMO Maturity Model (Categories and Measurement)
- Obtain PMO resources
- Select PMO training
- Implement PMO methodologies
- Select PMO reporting
- Select PMO tools and processes
- PMO complete!
Wow, that’s a lot of steps and I want to tell you right now that building a PMO is no easy task. You have a huge project in front of you and you need to treat it like a project. You will hear quite often from your sponsors that they want you to go faster and get your PMO up and running, but you have to stress to them that this takes time and that this is not something that can happen overnight.
This list of steps becomes your PMO setup checklist that you can use to create any PMO.
Let’s go deeper into each of the steps.
1. Start with a plan
Creating a PMO is a huge project and so it is important to spend the time and create a WBS and get the tasks for this huge project into a scheduling tool. It does not have to be perfect, but it does need to be in a place where you can track and report progress.
2. Obtain executive support
This is probability the most important task in building a PMO. Without it you are dead in the water. Lack of executive support is something that will hurt your PMO in the long run.
One best practice I like to do is get 1 -2 executives to support my PMO in case one moves on and you lose their support. Having a backup executive is a smart thing for any project manager to do.
3. Create PMO staples
PMO staples are the four main components of any organization. They include:
- Mission Statement
- Vision Statement
- PMO Value and KPI’s
- PMO Budget.
Locking these for any organization is important, locking them for your PMO is critical.
4. Select 4 P’s of PMO (including Methodologies)
Selecting what type of methodology you will have in your PMO is critical. Will you be a Portfolio only PMO, a Program/Project PMO, a Project only PMO? Regardless, of the methodology you select, don’t forget the 4th P, the People in the PMO.
5. Select PMO model
Selecting your PMO model consists of determining your PMO type. The industry defines ten main models including Support, Controlling, Directive, Enterprise…etc.
The 5th step in this process is determine with your sponsors and executives what type of PMO model will you be. You executives will have an opinion on which model they want you to perform.
6. Create PMO Maturity Model (Categories and Measurement)
Every PMO needs a maturity model in order to determine how and were to mature. You won’t know if you are running an effective PMO if you are measuring how well you are doing.
7. Obtain PMO resources
This step of the process consists of hiring the people you need in your organization. I strongly suggest that you use a PMO Roles and Responsibilities Staffing model.
Based on a RACI, this staffing model will determine the PMO Service Offerings and determine what roles you need to fill those offerings. Without this PMO Service Offerings chart, you will have no real mechanism to justify the staff you need for your PMO.
8. Select PMO training
Now you have your staff, this is the time you spend to begin training them. Focus your training priorities on PMO mentoring programs, PMO buddy systems and hard and soft skills.
Every member of your PMO team is going to need all of these areas of training to really be effective in their roles.
9. Implement PMO methodologies
Now that you have your PMO model and your 4 P’s of your PMO, now is time to merge the two worlds together and make it real.
This consists of creating playbooks, guides, training, operating manuals, essentially everything to execute the tasks in your organization. You can say you are going to be a Directive PMO, but if you don’t give your PMO staff guides and operating procedures, you are not really directing them now are you?
10. Select PMO reporting
In this stage of the project, this is where you lock your PMO reporting and dashboards. Don’t rush into creating dashboards and scorecards, get some manual reports setup and working first and then spend the time and automate those manual reports.
Dashboards are awesome, and they can be amazing to see all the data in your PMO in one spot, but they come at a cost and at the stage of building a PMO, you don’t need a dashboard. Save your money, get manual reports up and running first and look at dashboards later.
11. Select PMO tools and processes
In this final stage of building your PMO, you are going to spend time and select specific tools and processes for your PMO. Tools will be based on Portfolio, Program and Project Management and processes will consist of the ones that are directly related to the automated tool you bought for Portfolio and Project Management.
Don’t be fooled, these tools come with a lot of processes and that will be something you need to incorporate if you decide to purchase these tools.
12. PMO complete!
That’s it you did it. You need to spend some time and celebrate and congratulate your team on doing this huge project. Now the work of running the PMO begins and that’s where all the fun happens.
Well that’s it, that’s the twelve steps in building a PMO broken down in consumable chunks for anyone to start using immediately.
Like what you read? Want to see the full guide with much more information?Click here to download the full guide!
This article first appeared on Rebel's Guide to Project Management and can be read here: How to Build a Project Management Office (PMO) Checklist in 12 Steps!
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How To Manage Multiple Projects At The Same Time
Watch my free webinar training on the 3 critical skills you need to manage multiple projects. Learn the skills you really need to juggle all your work!
A reader got in touch to ask me how I manage my personal project To Do list. “I assume you have multiple projects running at the same time,” she said. “I struggle with how to manage my project-related tasks, beyond dealing with the crisis of the day.”
The question of how to manage multiple projects at the same time comes up a lot. Today, it's a core project management technique that you'll need to know if you want to succeed in your job.
In this article we'll look at strategies for managing several different projects that are running in parallel.
I know I am not the only one who struggles with managing multiple projects.
In fact, I don’t know any project manager who is 100% dedicated to one project, even people like me who only work part-time.
Even when that has been me in the past, I’ve been managing big projects with multiple strands of work underneath that were as diverse as if they had been different projects.
It’s hard. And you need different skills for managing multiple projects to those you use for simply leading one.
How many projects are project managers leading?
Most projects managers are leading 2 to 5 projects at any one time.
My 2024 Multiple Projects Survey of 570 project managers shows that the majority of project managers are leading 2-5 projects at any one time.
This is consistent with research I did in previous years as well.
What does that look like in practice?
Let's say that you have three projects on the go that have the overall aim of streamlining processes and getting rid of paper. You could formally be managing these as a program, or they could be standalone pieces of work.
While they all might look broadly similar in objective, those projects might involve working with different software products (so different vendors), different technical teams, different business teams, different timelines and different locations.
You'd want to manage them as separate projects, but how do you keep all the tasks organized?
I don’t profess to have this down to a fine art (you can read my experience of how I learned to juggle several projects), but here are some tips that I use for managing your tasks, resources and time across several projects at once.
Managing tasks across multiple projects
I use my weekly reports as a reminder for what tasks are coming up. The weekly report covers what work was done this week and what work is due for completion the following week.
I open up the weekly report for last week and it tells me exactly what I should be working on this week.
Admittedly, sometimes I do that on a Thursday and then have to scramble around to get the tasks done. And it’s not long-range task management; it only helps you keep on top of the week-by-week priorities so you need something else for the bigger picture too.
To do that, you need to know what all your tasks are. I keep a separate action log for each project. The action log is my go-to place for everything that I need to do, or that I need other people to do. I will even review my bullet journal for other various notes I may have made over the past week.
Yes, I have a project schedule too, but I don’t put every small item on there.
Pick whatever task list tool works for you or grab my action log for free.
Each week I put aside time to go through my task lists and remind myself of what is on there. It doesn’t take long to scan the list or filter it on your name to see what your personal obligations are.
I don’t have a ‘must do by’ date on my action log but if it helps you to structure your time by seeing the deadlines then by all means add one.
I also have a notebook which has a list at the back for non-project work such as updating my objectives, tasks related to me helping on other projects, department budget work, and so on.
Managing resources across multiple projects
For all I love spreadsheets and notebooks, they really don’t cut it when it comes to managing resources. Diaries change too often, project schedules move around. It’s a full-time job keeping a resource spreadsheet up-to-date.
Modern scheduling apps like Resource Guru make it easier. You’ve got one pool of resources and you can drag-and-drop bookings to move them or assign them to someone else. Powerful filters allow you to focus on specific resources (by skill, location, department, and so on) and mean you don’t have to do so much scrolling.
Read how real project managers juggle multiple projects.
When you’ve got the same group of people working on different projects it helps them (and you) to have transparency about what tasks are coming up and when people have time off.
It also helps you schedule people effectively. The greater visibility you have over how people are allocated, the easier it is to fill up their slack time and avoid the use of contract resources. You can also more easily see resource clashes.
Resource utilization doesn't have to mean complicated spreadsheets! Resources aren’t just people. Resource management tools let you schedule the availability of meeting rooms and other resources.
This was really important to me when we had a lot of training going on for one project: we needed to schedule the single projector that was available (including driving it around to different locations). I wish I had had a tool like Resource Guru to make that easier!
Managing your time across multiple projects
I have a team conference call with each project team once a week (*cough* most of the time). It’s just a check-in, between 30 minutes and an hour. The main benefits for me are:
- I get to find out what everyone has done all week
- We share what’s creating sticky points and work together to unstick them
- It reminds me that I have to report to everyone on what I’ve been working on and to actually do some work on that project prior to the call so I don’t look like the only one who has done nothing.
- I pick their brains about what to put in my weekly report.
Having a spot in the week where my team holds me accountable for moving the project forward is hugely motivating.
How to work our what's a priority
The most important thing to be able to manage your time effectively is to know what is a priority. Some weeks, one project just isn’t a priority and the weekly report will reflect that. You find out what is a priority by:
- Asking your sponsor or line manager
- Taking direction from the PMO
- Using your professional judgment. Don’t underestimate your own ability to know what’s a priority. You should have an idea about how your project helps the company move forward. You should be able to work out which of your projects are important and what can wait.
- Being good at scheduling. All projects, however important, have slower periods for you as the project manager. Projects are normally busy at the start and towards the end of phases, but while the team is working well, your involvement for monitoring and controlling should be manageable. When your projects have slower periods, pick up priority work on your other projects or just get ahead for the next busy time.
- Working for who shouts the loudest that week – a terrible strategy but in the absence of any other direction it has been known for me to try to make unhappy stakeholders happier by doing that.
"Book meetings with yourself to get work done."
I also use my calendar to book ‘meetings’ with myself to get work done – very important for getting the more administrative side of project management done such as those weekly and monthly reports and reviewing resource calendars to deal with over and under allocations regularly.
Managing Expectations
You might be telling yourself that none of this matters, and you might believe some of the myths that block your promotion when it comes to having multiple projects on the go. But I think more and more managers expect you to be able to do this stuff.
The biggest tip I can give you for managing multiple projects at the same time is to keep communication channels open. Keep talking to the team leaders, the project sponsors, the managers. Stay close to what they are expecting from you. Then deliver it.
If you can't deliver it, you should be honest and upfront about why. Tell your line manager or project sponsor why that is the case, and what you are doing about it. They may be able to help you manage your workload or priorities.
Read next: How to Manage Expectations on Your Projects.Quick Answers
How many projects can I manage at the same time?
Most project managers lead between 2 and 5 projects at a time. However, you can manage as many as you can realistically take on. Over 5 at a time starts to get overwhelming for many people.Key Takeaways
- Stay on top of your task lists per project. You need to keep each project organized and clear.
- Book time in your diary each week to review your progress and outstanding work on each project.
- Use resource management tools if you have access to them.
- Make time to speak to each project team every week
- Know what is a priority and work to that
- Manage expectations.
This article was sponsored byResource Guru.
This article first appeared on Rebel's Guide to Project Management and can be read here: How To Manage Multiple Projects At The Same Time
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How to be a Portfolio Thinker
When you are juggling several projects at once, it pays to be able to take the bigger picture view of your workload. So why does that seem so hard? Once you’re stuck in the detail of To Do lists and Gantt charts it can feel difficult to lift your head and see how everything fits together.
However, the project environment already has a set of tools that allow you to do that at an organizational level: portfolio management.
In this article, we’ll look at portfolio management and then talk about how you can use the same principles to think of your own work as a portfolio to keep it all on track.
What is portfolio management?
Managing a portfolio requires a specific way of thinking: a joined up, holistic way of looking at everything with a view to creating balance, assessing priorities and making choices.
At an organizational level, portfolio thinking is shaped and constrained by what the Praxis Framework defines as the seven components of portfolio management:
- Establishing an infrastructure to support projects and programmes
- Defining management procedures and processes to be used consistently across projects and programmes
- Optimizing the allocation of available resources by managing supply and demand
- Maintaining a portfolio that balances strategic objectives in changing conditions
- Improving the delivery of projects and programmes through a co-ordinated view of risk, resources, dependencies and schedules
- Co-ordinating the need for change with the capacity of the organization to absorb change
- Reducing costs by removing overlapping and poorly performing projects and programmes.
These elements reflect how an organization would want to structure its governance processes to ensure the right projects get done at the right time, with the right resources to deliver the right outcomes and benefits.
If you are building a PMO, you’ll probably use these principles, or similarly-worded ideas, to frame the way you manage your work across the organization.
Individual portfolio management
However, you can use portfolio thinking at an individual level too. By reframing these organizational responsibilities to make them applicable to your personal workload, you can structure your workload to look at it in a portfolio way, which will help you feel more in control.
Many of my students and mentees feel more confident once they can ‘get their hands around the work’ and brain dump all the projects and tasks that are taking up space in their heads.
Portfolio thinking helps you see the connections between projects and activities that may make more sense if they are managed together.
The six principles of portfolio thinking at an individual workload level are as follows:
- Understand the big picture: all the tasks, projects and programmes in the portfolio
- Prioritize the work
- Group tasks and projects into buckets to make them easier to manage, monitor and control
- Plan and carry out all the work, and monitor progress against your plan
- Communicate project status and providing recommendations for actions to your manager, project sponsors and other key stakeholders
- Look for opportunities to continuously improve by learning as you go.
The concept of managing by portfolio thinking is covered in more detail in my book, Managing Multiple Projects.
1. Understand the big picture
The first principle requires you to have a full understanding of what makes up your workload today. That big picture view will give you the contents of your personal portfolio and the foundation for creating efficient working practices.
The easiest way to get this view is to make a big list of all the things you are working on.
2. Prioritize the work
The second principle is to prioritize the work. But everything is a priority, right? While you might hear that from colleagues or managers, it can’t be true – and even if it was, it’s unrealistic to expect project managers to work on everything all at the same time.
That’s not how work works. Having said that, if you only worked on the project that is your top priority, you would never make any progress on projects that appear lower down the list.
There is a balancing act in ensuring your priority projects get more of your time but the lower priority projects still get some attention – because no doubt your boss expects those to be moved on at least a little instead of ignored each month.
3. Group tasks and projects into buckets
Next up is grouping the work. If you can group the work into buckets, it becomes less overwhelming and you benefit from efficiencies of managing things together. Look for connections between the things on your portfolio list.
Here are some ways that you can group:
- By stakeholder: Do you have common resources or subject matter experts who are working with you on multiple projects? Perhaps you have multiple projects for the same sponsor, department, customer, or client.
- By theme or content: Do your projects have common deliverables or subject matter? For example, group all the projects that you’re doing that involve construction, or the projects that involve web design.
- By location: Do your projects serve a particular geographic location? Can you split them by country or region?
- By lifecycle stage: Do you have multiple projects going through a common project process in the lifecycle? You could group all your projects that are in the initiation phase, for example, so that you can work on common activities for them all.
- By project management approach: Do you have projects using different approaches? Maybe you’ve got some that are using a waterfall or predictive methodology, and others where you’re working with
agile or Scrum teams in a more iterative way.
4. Plan and carry out the work
The fourth principle of personal portfolio management is planning and carrying out the work, and monitoring progress against that plan, so plans are required.
Go through your portfolio and check that every project has, as a minimum, a high-level timeline. It doesn’t have to be detailed but you will need an idea of the key dates and milestones, as well as an idea of what resources (people and things) you need.
5. Communicate project status
A lot of stakeholder engagement is communication. It’s the fifth principle of personal portfolio management: communicating project status and providing recommendations for actions to your manager, project sponsors and other key stakeholders.
Communication goes wider than simply providing status updates and proposals for action because a lot of modern knowledge work is communication. Think of all the emails and instant messages you get in a day.
Think of all the staff briefings and phone calls. It is not surprising that stakeholders suffer from communication fatigue. There is just so much, it’s hard to pay attention to it all.
Think about how you can streamline project communications by combining messages and meetings.
6. Look for opportunities to improve
Looking for opportunities to continuously improve by learning as you go is the sixth and final personal portfolio management principle. Find time to consider what you have learned and what you are going to differently as a result of that knowledge.
Finding the time to reflect can be difficult when your project workload is heavy, but there are ways to build reflection time into each month. There are probably retrospectives or lessons learned conversations already scheduled: these are a rich source of learning and opportunity.
Have a working lunch with a colleague in a similar role to you and chat about what you’ve done this month that was successful. Share ideas about how to approach the situations that didn’t go quite so well.
If you prefer to reflect alone, put 30 minutes in your calendar for first or last thing in the week, grab your favourite hot drink and work through a Stop, Start, Continue exercise (get a free template for that here).
When you approach your work as a portfolio thinker, you can start to see where activities can be streamlined, just like you would managing the portfolio for the whole organization. Do you think this approach would work for you?
This article first appeared on Rebel's Guide to Project Management and can be read here: How to be a Portfolio Thinker
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Help! I’m Managing Multiple Projects
There has always been a tension between running the business and changing the business. As a project manager, my work leading change has often felt like it’s got in the way of my colleague’s ability to run the business.
Project leaders are regularly told that ‘run’ takes priority: keeping the lights on is more important than whatever new thing I’m trying to get done.
However, the tide is turning. As Antonio-Nieto Rodrigues writes in HBR, the project economy means more and more organizations are setting themselves up to be project-driven. What was previously seen as an ‘extra’ is now fundamental to building competitive advantage, developing new offers and meeting consumer expectations.
Combined with advances in AI-enabled tech and robotic processing automation, the belief that structuring work as projects helps you achieve repeatable, efficient delivery. Projects underpin the way organizations operate as well as how they evolve.
I welcome the shift. However, there’s just one problem: managers and executives who have taken the lead on projects often have little – if any – experience of project management tools and techniques.
And faced with a personal portfolio of change to deliver or initiatives to launch, they can’t simply focus on doing one project well. They have to juggle multiple projects and tailor their approach to make sure all the balls stay in the air.
Expectations at work have changed
Many of our colleagues had to adapt the way they worked as the pandemic began. With team members furloughed, leaders found themselves picking up more (and different) work and juggling became the norm as people pitched in to get things done.
As a result, the way we see work has fundamentally changed. Hybrid working could boost productivity by 4.6% but could that be higher if more people were able to access the techniques and processes that project managers take for granted?
It can be stressful being an accidental project manager (someone who finds themselves managing projects but never set out with that career goal in mind) or an unaware project manager (someone who doesn’t yet recognise they are managing projects).
The biggest challenge I’ve seen for the people I mentor and work with is how to adapt ways of working to keep on top of multiple things.
A giant To Do list isn’t enough to stay organised and focused on the priority tasks, but clicking in and out of many project schedules feels inefficient too.
The impact on project professionals
Project professionals aren’t immune to this stress either. My research shows that 59% of project managers lead between 2 and 5 projects, with 26% of project managers leading more than 6 projects at a time.
The biggest challenge for people in this situation is worry about the quality of work. Over 60% of project professionals are concerned that they aren’t doing their jobs to the best of their ability because of the workload.
Given that as project professionals we tend to have the skills to organise, plan, follow up and engage others, I can only imagine the stress on our colleagues who are not able to draw on proven tools and techniques.
Supporting colleagues with project delivery
Whether you are leading a team of project managers who are each juggling multiple projects, managing a PMO, or operating as the solo ‘official’ project leader in your organization, think about how you can share what you know with your colleagues responsible for delivery in their own areas.
Opening up your library of templates for the whole organisation to use, running lunch and learn sessions on productivity tips, or offering training on your software tools could all help boost project outcomes.
Empowering people in all roles to use the tools and techniques they need, regardless of workload, regardless of job title, will help organisations deliver better value overall,
What’s in your personal portfolio?
Most importantly, if you find yourself trying to keep a lot of balls in the air, focus on priorities. And in the absence of any priority-setting information from on high, make your own judgement based on what you know to be important.
In my experience, we’re expected to keep everything moving forward and report some progress on each initiative, even the low priority projects. But it is a lot easier to do that if you can identify the priority order for the work that makes up your personal portfolio.
Portfolio management techniques – the ability to balance risk and reward while doing the right projects at the right time – work at an individual level as well as across an organisation.
If you are a multiple project manager, whether by design or accident, take stock of what you are doing, how individual projects fit together and where you can find efficiencies by combining schedules, risk management activities, stakeholder meetings and more.
Working on many projects at once can feel stressful, but it’s also a great way of seeing more of the organization and learning about how it works as a system because there will be interconnecting informal power structures and opportunities to share knowledge. It helps build clarity about what is really important and shapes decision-making.
The way organizations lean on project delivery is changing and we have to change with it. That means sharing what we know, streamlining processes and making it as easy as possible to juggle a modern workload through smarter ways of working.
Project management practices have to keep up with the realities of what it means to deliver change. How is your organization shaping up?
This article first appeared on Rebel's Guide to Project Management and can be read here: Help! I’m Managing Multiple Projects