How to prioritize work?

Question

i am currently involved in two projects. Both projects I am working on have quite a number of tasks which I think are critical. I did highlight to both project managers that I may not be able to handle the workload and I requested backup - but in the end they only did some shifting back of the work schedule.

How would you prioritize your work between the two projects or convey to them the message that I am overloaded.

Currently my approach is that I will only work during office hours and not bring the work home like I did before before because I realize that the workload is so much that everyday I may need to work after office hours.

Answer 1

Your manager should tell you "50% on this project, 50% on that one", or "30% on this, 70% on that". Split up your time (best is probably by week, so you can devote larger chunks of time to one task), and work on the highest priority thing for each project during that projects allotted time.

Answer 2

Get your manager to prioritise between the two.

If that doesn't work block off time for the two projects, say three hours per day on one and three hours per day on the other.

HTH.

cheers,

Rob

Answer 3

It's tough when you are working on two projects with two different PMs.

Are you on a contract for this assignment?

Do you have a supervisor, whom you can approach to assist with determining the best way to spend your time, or make arrangements/adjustments?

Answer 4

Communication is key. One trick I've used is to go in with a prioritized list and say "This is the order that I'm working down the tasks. Is it correct, or do you have any changes you'd like to make?" Then check in with your manager as often as daily and show the list. "I was able to get items 1,2, and 3 done, but there's an issue with 4 (explain), so I've started on #5. Do you want to change my priorities?"

Depending on your situation, a manager might need help managing you. There's things you can do to help the situation out.

Answer 5

Perhaps one thing to try would be to share your calendar (Outlook, or google) with both Project Managers, so they can have visibility of the fact that you can only work on one thing at a time.

They may their own project plans, but I bet they haven't verified your workload on both plans. Showing them your calendar means they will have to face that their plan does not reflect reality.

Answer 6

Hi Ron

Ultimately you have to tell your boss that you have too much on, but it's difficult to do without sounding like you're whinging.

I would suggest creating a task list, putting them in a schedule and then asking your boss to prioritise the work with you. Hopefully you'll resolve your workload and will be appearing pro-active at the same time.

The key is to prioritise....

Good luck :)

Answer 7

Make sure your tasks are granular enough so you can put decently accurate estimates on them.

Calculate your capacity on a weekly or fortnightly (SCRUM like) basis (80%-85% or so, never more) and convey this to them.

Once they agree what percentage split you should be spending on project A vs. project B. you can work out how many days each of them have in your next development timebox (sprint).

Put them in a room, and they can each put items in that they want done within the development timebox. Simply subtract the item's estimate from the total capacity split for you in this period, and once they reach zero, that's it. If they want other functionality in, they drop other features from the list in favor of others.

It will make them actively understand that you cannot do everything and yet give them control over what should go into the next development cycle or not.

Just make sure you're on top of your estimates (times 3.0!) and that your tasks are refined enough.

Answer 8

If you guys use a project management tool, I'd do something like ...

• Get people to give you the best and most detailed spec possible. ;-) (Yeah, wouldn't we all like that?)
• Then isolate what exactly you need do and outline the steps required.
• Along with the steps required, stick a number (X days, hours) on each item. Careful about judging. I'm not assuming that you don't know how long you need to do something, I am just saying things go wrong and sometimes a trivial problem eats a day away.
• Have your project managers decided what you should do first. Because that is what a project manager is for. They need to decide that stuff and get it off your back. It's not really your responsibility.
• Stick to the plan!

The last bit is kind of critical. With all the planning I do, what throws me off are unforseen issues which I need to fix in between. They always tend to eat up more time and then it gets messy because people often don't see and realize that you worked on something else, but what they see is that you can't meet your deadline.

Question is - do those things in between, or don't.

I don't know your situation but if you work on those two projects for the same company, have the people around you protect yourself from those issues and be up front and tell people that if you do A, B will suffer/have to wait. Might also help to bring both project managers into the same room so they can talk to each other and are aware of the situation.

In the end the process is very, very much about discipline and pro-active communication. Let people right away how a change in focus will have an impact on the work that needs to be done.

And don't drink too much coffee and try to avoid a nervous breakdone/ulcer or similar. :-)

Answer 9

If the project managers are giving you unrealistic deadlines given your workload, then push back or escalate. Part of a project manager's job is to manage the expectations of the project's customers. If they are not doing that they aren't doing their job.

It is part of a project manager's job to manage expectations of the clients in line with the available resources to do the work. Allowing them to low-ball the allocation does you no favours either way. If you accept low-balled schedules you will be perceived as not meeting expectations, so the perception of your performance will suffer. If you push back you may be perceived as uncooperative. To a greater or lesser degree the conflict is unavoidable, so there is relatively little to lose by being assertive about your time.

In the world of the PM, delivery is everything. Most of the PM's job in a corporate environment is trying to get resources to do the job, deliver with insufficient resources and get people who they have no direct authority over to do stuff needed for the project. The archetypal project manager is a bully (sorry to any PM's reading this) but this is a necessary skill to manage projects in any environment with incumbent politics and responsibility-without-authority. Much of the PM's work is endless pushing and prodding to get disinterested third parties do to things they don't really want to do.

You can push back. Project plans are flexible and expectations can be managed. Much of the time the PM is just trying it on. Stand firm about your time and be prepared to admit that you cocked up your estimates if you do get it wrong. If it took longer than you said, be up front with it.

If you have to involve management in prioritising the work, make sure that there is a paper trail of the priorities and make sure it gets circulated to all PM's and stakeholders involved. You are the pig and they are chickens.

Answer 10

First, get the book, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done , which is in effect a CPU scheduling algorithm for the human brain.

Second, read Joel's Painless Software Schedule, http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000245.html

Answer 11

If the projects have the same general flow, make a clear split between the projects, as Chris Marasti-Georg and Rob Wells suggest. Put in half or full days per project - you are right with avoiding the context switch.

If the projects have different "crunch phases" and release schedules, this obviously needs to be adjusted dynamically. In the worst case, you rather need to finish one feature for A, then finish one feature for B.

In any case, get both PM's on one table. In the end it is THEIR job to set your priorities, and figure out how to split you up. If they won't deal with each other, you need to escalate it to their "common boss".

Answer 12

Get your two project managers into the same room and tell them that you need one list of priorities... Let them sort out where in the list the current tasks go and new tasks should be added.

Ideally have one of them own the list but failing that at least have them recognise that there is one list and that they are sharing it.

I don't belive that 50% roles work, so you need to treat it as one assignment and work on the various tasks in priority order.