Seeing Your Work

I'm Johanna Rothman, and this is the Pragmatic Manager podcast.

In this podcast, we’ll take a look at how to talk about how many projects you are attempting to finish.

I meet people all the time, and I'm always amazed when I meet developers, project managers, testers, writers, and other project staff who look as if they haven't slept in days.

One project manager said, “I'm managing three projects. I'm not making any progress on any of them. But my boss thinks I should be able to manage at least three projects. How many should I be able to manage?”

I wish I had the right answer. The best answer is “It depends.”

Here’s why. If you have an extraordinary team who knows how to work together, who can resolve issues among themselves, who can remove obstacles by themselves, who can negotiate for resources if they need them, and who have enough discipline to monitor their work and steer the project without you, you can manage that project team--because they don't need you--and one other normal team.

Same thing with developers. Same thing with testers.

If you're multitasking and trying to work on multiple projects, you know you are shortchanging at least one of them, if not all of them. A successful project manager can manage one project at a time. Same with developers. Same with testers

You can make yourself nuts by trying to work on more projects, but you're unlikely to be successful.

And yes, I know several people who seem to be quite good at managing multiple projects. They all have extraordinary teams, not normal teams made up of normal human beings.

So why do people have more than one project at a time to finish? Because their managers don’t know how or don’t realize how to manage the project portfolio. While you wait for me to finish the project portfolio book, here’s a six-step plan for what you can do:

1. Make a list of all the work you are trying to do. Just a list. Write each piece of work, every item on that list, on a sticky note.
2. Now, make a grid on your whiteboard or a flip chart, or, if you must, in a spreadsheet.
3. You need 5 columns on this grid. On the top left, write the word “Tasks”, and then for each of the next four columns, write the words week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4. Make a dark vertical line between Tasks and Week 1. You have 5 columns with a dark vertical line between Tasks and Week 1.
4. Now, assign each sticky note to one of the weeks. If you have a project that spans more than one week, write another sticky note for each week. Duplicate the stickies for each week. If you’re managing Project 1 for four weeks, you’ll have a sticky for Project 1 for each week.
5. Underneath all the stickies, mark a big black horizontal line, and write “Unstaffed work” in the left-most column. You have “Tasks” and then some space, and “Unstaffed Work.” You have 5 columns, Tasks with Weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, to the right. You have stickies. You have another row labeled “Unstaffed Work” at the bottom.
6. Now comes the hard part. You have to be honest with yourself. Know that you are human. You have a limited amount of time in any given week. Take the stickies you cannot fully commit to, and put them in the “unstaffed work” row for each week. Making these decisions is not easy. It is necessary.
   

I’ll be posting a picture of a blank portfolio on the podcast page. See the blank portfolio picture.

Now you have a picture of a project portfolio, and you can talk to your boss about it. In another podcast, I’ll give you some hints on how to say No to work you can’t do. At least now, you have a picture of all the work you’re supposed to do.

I'm offering a public project management workshop Sept. 22-24, 2008 in Waltham, MA. You’ll learn how to start, steer, and end a project successfully, using pragmatic approaches. You’ll have a chance to practice approaches to project management that prevent this business of trying to manage multiple projects or manage the people who are supposed to be working on multiple projects at the same time. Go to jrothman.com/workshops.html for more information.

I’ll have the specific URL with the workshop description and registration in the show notes for this episode as well as a transcript of this episode.

Some of my listeners have requested that I respond to questions or run these podcasts as an interview. Sounds like fun to me! If you want to interview me, contact me.

Have comments on this podcast? I’d love to hear from you. Email me at [e-mail]

Click for the mp3 file.