How can leaders and managers focus on multiple projects?

On my previous post I touched upon building teams out of a group of individuals. From each project team leaders and managers emerges ort assigned. In most cases we find that the project leaders/managers are involved in multiple projects, not only company related but personal related as well. This involvement in several projects can have negative consequences to the team. Marci Alboher, a New York author described a growing number of people who leads and manages multiple projects and can’t identify where they really below as a “slasher”. This phenomenon is now very common since most of us starts to multitask and sometimes lose focus. For the team leaders/managers to be effective and efficient they should always maintain an overview of each project they are involved and balance their priorities. How can this be done?

The best way to get an overview of various projects (company related and personal) managed by a single person is to create a project portfolio matrix and plot each project in terms of cost and time, where cost means financial cost, resource cost, efforts and possible stress it brings. Add in a way to prioritize the projects as (1)Does it help achieve your objectives and (2)Are you learning from this project? When you define objective and goals it must be high enough that it is challenging. Michelangelo once said that “the greatest danger to most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it but it is too low and we reach it”. I have created simple illustration below:

Now for projects that you don’t learn from and does not correspond to your vision and objectives you should reject those and never take them in your task or responsibility list. Projects that you can learn from but does not help you achieve your goals or objectives are interesting but it makes you lose focus, so try to change those in such a way that the project result is directed towards your objectives. If a project corresponds to your vision and objectives but you learn nothing from it, then it is best to delegate that to another person. If the project helps you achieve your goals and objectives and help you learn something new, then this is the project you must focus on.

Hold on! Wait a minute here… you might ask, how do I know what is the right goal or objective? Let’s consult Sir John Whitmore who emphasize that the final goal should be distinguished from the performance goal. For example your final goal can be winning the New York Marathon, an example of a performance goal to achieve is running 10 km on Monday, Wednesday and Friday then running 20Km on Tuesday and Thursday and running a full marathon on Saturdays. Following the John Whitmore model, check that your goals corresponds to the 14 requirements of being SMART, PURE and CLEAR stated below:

Specific
Measureable
Attainable
Realistic
Time Phased

Positively Stated
Understood
Relevant
Ethical

Challenging
Legal
Environmentally Sound
Agreed
Recorded

Having said that do not compliment things always think of a simple acronym derived from Albert Einstein’s principle of “Everything should be made as simple as possible. But no simpler” called KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid)coined by Kelly Johnson.


Are your goals SMART, PURE and CLEAR? Does it correspond to the KISS principle?

I have written something for team leaders/managers or slashers, however it actually applies to everybody from the way you prioritize your task and the goals you set to yourself.