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Managing Multiple Projects

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Managing Multiple Projects

McGraw-Hill,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

From staff to budget to schedules: the essential how-to manual for leaders who run many small and medium-sized projects.

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Irene and Michael Tobis have written an essential book for managers who run numerous small projects or complex combinations of large and small projects with multiple employees who have varying skill levels. If the process you manage hasn’t been automated to the point of being an assembly line, you need this book, especially if you are responsible for team production and output. getAbstract.com recommends it as a fundamental part of any business management curriculum and as a training tool for new managers. Others who would benefit from it include teachers, project leaders, volunteer organization presidents and committee heads who orchestrate complex tasks. The authors provide principles, definitions and techniques that you can apply to your specific situation. Anyone who feels overwhelmed or overloaded will benefit, in particular, from chapters five and six, which focus on identifying everything you have committed to and developing a plan both to get out from under the overload and to manage future commitments more gracefully. Go get your copy.

Summary

Group Project Management

As a manager, you determine which resources (whether human, mechanical, time or money) to allocate to each project and how to deliver your projects properly by their respective deadlines. If you manage multiple projects with numerous handoffs and deal with various segment leaders, you need to know what is happening where, if deadlines are being met and if the process is as efficient as it can be. As your team and business grow, you must develop more structured means of managing projects and people.

The more complex your product or service, the greater your challenge as a manager. For instance, a fast food restaurant offers consumers limited choices, and its staff has specific procedures for prepping each choice. A cheeseburger is made the same way over and over. Employees do not need to make any decisions as they produce it in a way that meets the consumer’s expectations. The "system" is designed to achieve consistency within the narrow confines of a specific objective: selling people the same food, on time, every time.

A business in a different environment - say an advertising agency working to provide unique, creative products - cannot...

About the Authors

Irene Tobis and Michael Tobis own a business consulting firm called Ducks-in-a-Row Organizing Consultants. They share a background in systems engineering and psychology.

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