Managing Multiple Projects

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. We recommend 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.

I'm a software developer, and although I don't manage other people's time and effort across multiple projects, I have to manage mine. I've been through many of the more popular Time Management books around for solutions, but this book hit the nail on the head. A simple yet profound exercise described in the book is doing an analysis of your current workload to determine when, if at all, you'll hit some "crunch time", where your commitments simply outstretch your available time to work them. While simple (and after you read it, obvious) it's never been taught in any class I've ever taken. And once you see it, you'll wonder why it wasn't. It's critical. And it's the basis for the rest of the outstanding techniques in the book to manage your workload (and that of your subordinates) across multiple projects, crunch time or not. I highly recommend this to management and worker bees alike. Simply indispensible.

It's not really an exaggeration to say that any manager could learn from this book. It's unfortunate that many people who would benefit most from this book might not even realize how much they need it....The title seems to suggest that this book is about project management, but since the authors define "project" as "a commitment of time and resources aimed at a specific outcome," the book is really much more comprehensive.It's about managing lots of things effectively as the same time.So, it's about managing time, formalizing processes, dealing with emotional demands, avoiding the dangers of setting priorities, compartmentalizing, tracking projects, and making changes in systems. Just try to find another book that covers all those areas! This book covers them - and the tone and style make it easy to read. (It's interesting what can happen when a systems engineer and a psychologist team up to write a book!)How much time do you lose trying to juggle tasks and the people responsible for them? How much is that time worth? It's probably far more than the price of this book. Do you want to manage more effectively and more easily? If so and you're serious about it, this book would be a great investment.

My life is a constant balancing act of work, family, community and friends. I've been a manager for 20 years, so I've seen a lot. Typically I look for one or two good ideas in a book. But this excellent book, clearly written, is full of personal management and project management advice. It has really helped me simplify and get organized. The Cheeseburger Paradox opened my eyes to our quality problems from a completely new perspective. The chapters on time management and scheduling are fresh and present new ideas that I can put to work immeadiately.My other project management books sit on a shelf collecting dust, being either too detailed or esoteric for day-to-day use. This is one that I carry around with me, loving marked with post-it notes, so I can show people, "See, this is what I mean."

I have the Job from Hell - I'm responsible for production scheduling at a busy graphics pre-press house. All day long I make commitments to customers and then turn around and try to get my work group to deliver on them. Before I read "Managing Multiple Projects" I felt completely overwhelmed by my responsibilities. Now I believe there's hope. Chapter 2, "The Cheeseburger Paradox", really spells out the problem. "It's great to aim high, to attempt to do more and do it better. But unless you can do that reliably, unless your customers can depend on you, you've got problems... the high-value-added operation cannot afford to deliver inferior service." The rest of the chapter - and the book - offers tools and techniques for achieving reliability.This book really helped me see where the systems I use are letting me down and how I can change that. I've read books on time management. I've struggled to make Microsoft Projects work for me, but nothing's clicked like the advice I've read in "Managing Multiple Projects". Anyone who's tried other books on time and project management and felt unsatisfied ought to give this book a try. The authors' combination of systems engineering perspective and psychological insight into stress and group process sets this book apart. I happen to think it is groundbreaking work.