Why Managing Multiple Projects Isn’t Program Management ... and What to Do About It

In the past year, several of our most sophisticated clients added our Managing Multiple Projects course to their curricula. In fact, this course has become so popular, that we offer it as a public virtual class for the first time this June.

Why this uptick in interest? Managing multiple projects, at first glance,  appears to be simply a scaled-down version of program management. Why not offer a program management course instead? This makes sense if your definition of a program is “multiple projects.” But that isn’t the definition, is it? The PMI definition of program adds one key condition:

“A group of related projects, subprograms, and program activities managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually.”

That’s the difference: multiple projects don’t necessarily have a relationship among them. Therefore, the manager of multiple projects has no strategic theme to fall back on when prioritizing some very basic project management activities. For example:

1. Prioritizing effort: In a program, the logic of project dependencies makes this much simpler. Project A’s deliverables are needed before Project B or Project C can deliver their deliverables. In a pure multiple project environment, however, the project manager must build, assess, and prioritize a project “mini-portfolio” to ensure that time is being spent properly.
2. Stakeholders, resources, and risks: Multiple projects expands the stakeholder universe, and these stakeholders can’t be persuaded by an appeal to program priorities. You must extend the personal portfolio metaphor across key project disciplines like stakeholder, resource, and risk management.
3. Personal time management: These challenges also extend to the project manager’s time. The rhythm of a program helps keep some order to the demands, but the manager of multiple projects who cannot manage calendars, workload, and delegation will start flail around, beset by conflicting priorities.

Whether your organization has a few key leaders who need to step up on multiple projects, or you’re been handed several herds of cats to wrangle, our public virtual edition of Managing Multiple Projects is for you.