Managing Multiple Projects
Many project managers are responsible for multiple projects . If each project is planned well, managing a set of them should not be difficult. When projects don't share dependencies, managing them is straightforward—just manage each project individually, with a separate project schedule for each one.
When projects share dependencies, they are more challenging to manage. There are two ways that one project might depend on another. In the first type, two projects rely on the same resources; in the second type, a work product generated by one project is needed by the other. Getting a handle on these dependencies is the first important step in managing multiple projects.
Understand Dependencies Between Projects
The most common way for projects to be interdependent is through shared resources. One instance of this happening is "pipelined" projects. In many software organizations, software projects go through a set of sequential phases: requirements, design, development, programming, and testing. In each phase, most of the work is done by a small subset of the team, leaving the rest of the team available to work on other projects. To allow the team to work at full capacity, they might be working on several projects at once. Project A is in the requirements phase, while at the same time, project B is in design, project C is in development, and project D is being tested.
The trouble with this system is that no two projects take exactly the same time, and the phases ...