“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape”
— Unknown
As a project manager, are you focused on achieving your project goals and objectives? Or are you trying to micromanaged and as a consequence are not as focused as you should be?
Project manager, remaining focused
The tools of a project management methodology such as work packages are designed to assist the project manager in delivering a successful project. However, if there are multiple issues arising at any one time within a project, a project manager can end up trying to deal with them all in parallel and failing simply through the sheer volumes of work required to do so.
In order to remain as an effective project manager in control of a project, it is vital for that project manager to organise their work in such a way that what can seem like overwhelming levels of issues can be handled correctly – each in their own right.
Prioritisation and impact analysis are the most obvious ways of handling this type of scenario.
- Can the project continue with this issue for the moment?
- Does the issue cause a significant impact on one of the big four – Budget, Time, Quality of Scope?
- Do the issues require the same resources to resolve them or can a different resource set take-on some of the challenges?
Each project issue requires this level of analysis. It is only by doing this, the relevance of that issue can be determined and the work structures altered to handle them. The project manager needs to assess the impact of the project issue against each of the big four and prioritise based on that.
The other key to managing multiple issues that arise when they seek to overwhelm the project manager is to ensure that others are engaged to focus on the actual resolution i.e. people with the right set of expertise. Even if this means in drafting other managers to focus on their resolution. The project manager can then focus on working the issues into the project plan and assess the impacts at a project level rather than at the issue level.
A project manager cannot afford to be like the hunter of the two rabbits. The project manager needs to send two hunters out – one for each rabbit – that way, both will be caught.
What are your thoughts? Do you think a project manager should engage other management resources to help overcome issues?
Photo: Robobobo
Two rabbits…
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