Best Tips To Manage Multiple Projects At Once!

As understood in project management certification– let’s take a look at these pointers for successfully managing many projects at once. 

Each project should be broken down into one hour of work every day. You have one hour to be productive, to accomplish a task, to assign responsibilities, to have a meeting...whatever it is, you have one hour to complete it. Is this something you've heard before? You know what I'm talking about if you've ever handled many projects at once. There are a lot of things you can do in an hour on a daily basis, but managing a project isn't generally one of them. But that's exactly what a lot of us are doing. To "successfully" manage a project in one-hour increments, we must be able to:

•        Stubborn

•        Ritualistic – maintain a good weekly schedule so we know where we are in terms of tasks and planned work at any given time of the week

•        An efficient and effective communicator

•        Well-organized

•        Focused on what is in front of us at that moment on a specific project's tasks in the project management software schedule, not the next project on our list

To keep everyone on the same page and on the same page, send out at least one team / client communication of a highlight or status. As understood in project management certification - the finest project managers are excellent communicators, and the most successful projects are those in which everyone is on the same page throughout the duration of the project. The PM and project team make sure this happens by sending out at least a daily project status update to everyone on the front lines of project management, including the project client. To gain the maximum collaboration and success, I believe in being as upfront with the client as possible.

Spend a portion of the hour every day allotted for the weekly status report on the weekly status report and ensure that all tasks are operating well. You, your team, and the client will be ill-prepared for a meaningful weekly project status call if the status project report is thrown together at the last minute. Make sure it's a good report - one of the best ways to achieve that is to spend a few minutes each day making sure it's ready for the status call on Thursday, for example. If it's every Thursday, have a thorough conversation with your whole project team the day before to ensure the status report is as current and accurate as possible. Then, every week, have a status call with the customer based on the project status report. Easy.

Check the project's finances on a regular basis. Most project managers, especially those who are young or inexperienced, find the financial aspect to be the most difficult. It should be rather straightforward to stay inside 10% of budget all the way to the conclusion of the engagement if you are closely controlling the budget. If you don't keep track of your project budget on a regular basis, it's all too simple for it to spiral out of control – especially if you're managing 4-5 projects. A 50% overage is nearly hard to correct, and the project is doomed to fail.

Want to learn more about the same? Take on a project manager or business analyst course today!