Managing Multiple Projects

Does your organization work on more than one project at a time? Are there limitations to the type and amount of human and other resources for project assignments?

Are your projects taking longer and longer to complete? Are results less than optimal because of time pressures on resources? Would you like to increase project “throughput”?

Succeeding in today’s competitive marketplace often requires cycle time reduction - reducing the duration of projects, and getting results faster. This workshop will address managing multiple projects within the context of program or product management.

Planning and managing individual projects is challenging. When introducing the real-life limitation of resources and other outside influences into the multi-project environment, those challenges are magnified and new challenges are introduced.

This interactive workshop will position you for immediate action. The goal of this course is to equip you with the necessary knowledge, skills, and techniques so that you can effectively and productively manage multiple projects.

Who Should Attend

• Manages a single project that is affected by other projects within his/her organization
• Participates in or leads resource assignment
• Makes decisions across multiple projects, and/or supports portfolio management decision-making processes for the selection and prioritization of projects
• Manages multiple projects at his/her company

What you will learn

• Manage stakeholder relationships and expectations
• Prioritize and sequence multiple projects
• Manage time and stress within a multi-project environment
• Effectively navigate the multi-project environment
• Use appropriate methods to plan and control multiple projects
• Apply scheduling and estimating techniques
• Maintain a dynamic multi-project schedule

Prerequisites

A good working knowledge of project management, as well as some experience managing projects

Course Outline

Getting Started

• Introductions 
• Course structure 
• Course goals and objectives 

Foundation Concepts

• Portfolio, program, and project management principles 
• The multiple project environment 
• The MMP Process Model 

Developing the Multi-Project List

• Multi-project portfolio management 
• Project selection 
• Project categories and types 
• The multi-project list 

Multi-Project Logical Dependencies

• Project dependencies 
• Types of multi-project portfolios 
• Categories of logical dependencies across multiple projects 
• Project priorities in the multi-project schedule 

Multi-Project Resource Management 

• Multi-project resources and resource management concepts 
• Multi-project resource loading 
• Resource pool and resource database 
• Multi-project resource issues and outsourcing 
• Critical chain resource management, including drum resources and multi-tasking 

Managing Risk Across Multiple Projects

• Multi-project risk management process 
• Identifying, assessing, and responding to multi-project risks 
• Critical chain and multi-project risks 
• Risk interrelationship management methods 

Creating and Executing the Multi-Project Plan

• The multi-project plan 
• Multi-project scheduling 
• Multi-project budgeting 
• Executing and maintaining the multi-project plan 
• Controlling in the multi-project environment 
• Tools in multi-project management 

Multi-Project Communications

• Effective communication in the multi-project environment 
• Common communication barriers 
• Multiple project communications plan 
• Resolving multi-project conflicts 

Summary

• What did we learn, and how can we implement this in our work environments?