Lack of proper strategies for managing and tracking multiple projects makes it difficult for you to prioritize, effectively manage the project team and monitor whether tasks are running according to plan.
Thankfully, you can strategize properly to make your work easy. From effective planning, communication to the proper allocation of resources will help you to manage and track multiple projects at the same time effectively. Additionally, technology has brought software that helps automate tasks and makes your work more efficient.
Here are ten strategies to manage and track multiple projects at once.
1. Proper planning
Managing multiple projects can be daunting, especially if you don’t plan your projects well. Planning is the key to successful project management. Having an effective plan makes your task of managing multiple projects easier.
Project planning involves various tasks such as collecting stakeholders’ data and specifications, estimations, resource allocation and coming up with a project team.
Here are a few tips to help you in planning.
- Develop task lists for project activities
- Estimate the duration of each task
- Set a realistic timeline for all the projects
- Delegate duties to the project team
In addition to the tips above, it is advisable to keep track of the project’s progress.
2. Set goals
Goals act as a motivator and push you to work hard towards a common vision. Additionally, employees can remain focused on the main targets, and this increases productivity. Your projects goals should be SMART ( specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and anchored within a time frame).
So how do you set your project goals? Keep reading.
- Lists all the requirements of your projects
- Come up with a long term goal depending on the length of each project.
- Set short term goals that are achievable at the end of each week or month
- Evaluate performance. Review your goals weekly or monthly to measure the progress of the projects.
3. Place all your projects in a central place.
Having scattered projects makes it difficult to access and identify the resources each may require. However, housing projects in one place helps you easily access the projects, track their progress and identify potential risks that need to be addressed.
You can also store your projects in a cloud-based system to enhance project safety and quick tracking.
4. Prioritize tasks
Prioritizing tasks is important when managing multiple projects. You can note down priorities for your projects that you must achieve by the end of each day. You can start with tasks that significantly impact your projects, such as those with tight delivery deadlines.
You can use grouping to save time by placing repetitive tasks from several different projects together.
5. Choose resource allocation type.
The best method of tracking multiple projects is by selecting one way of resource allocation. This selection highly depends on the methods your company uses and your preference. There are two ways you can use it to allocate resources, to tasks and projects. Task allocation involves duties that you assign your project team based on your clients’ requirements. Project allocation involves allocating staff to projects.
6. Hold regular meeting
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Holding regular team meetings is an excellent way of tracking multiple projects. These meetings shouldn’t consume much of your time. You can choose to stand up meetings quickly to evaluate projects progress while identifying and solving problems that may have arisen from the projects.
Periodic meetings paint a clear picture of where each project stands and improvements that need to be done.
7. Communicate
For you to succeed in managing multiple projects, you have to communicate effectively right from the beginning. Create open forums where your team members can ask questions and share any arising issues with the whole team. Give an ear to their concerns and suggest changes to the projects’ objectives or tasks.
Effective communication allows the team to learn about any potential challenges and find solutions to them. It is also important to inform your team of the project’s goals as this makes them feel part of your projects. Effective communication makes the management of multiple projects smooth and easy.
8. Adjust and review
It is normal to have changes on the plan, especially when handling multiple projects. You have to be flexible to adapt to these changes. Make it a habit to regularly monitor and review the progress of your projects and adjust the original plan’s scope accordingly.
9. Automate tasks
Automation of repetitive tasks saves time and reduces human errors. Automation software helps in the completion of more projects tasks within a short period. Software is the best tool to track the progress of the project and sharing of files. It is efficient and cost-effective compared to manual work.
Automation helps reduce project risks, increases productivity and allows you and your team to focus on important vital functions for the success of your projects.
10. Delegate work
As a project manager, you cannot handle all the workload by yourself. You will have to trust and assign responsibilities to your project team members. Ensure you assign tasks that perfectly fit the member’s skills and experience.
However, assigning tasks gives you the responsibility to monitor the progress to ensure your projects succeed. That is why you will need an excellent connection with the team members to understand what they are doing. Create friendly and open communication to make your task easy in ensuring the progress is on track.
Bottom line
Managing and tracking multiple projects can be overwhelming. You have to meet your projects’ demands, budget and the requirements of all the stakeholders.
However, when you strategize well and use powerful tracking and managing tools, it can save your headaches and make your life easier. Make it a habit to trust your team members and build an open communication forum to listen and give appropriate feedback to their issues. The success of each project gives you more expertise and makes your job enjoyable.
