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Multi-Project Management –
Synchronization is Key to Effective
Execution
The key to effective project management is synchronization – which, frankly, runs
completely contrary to the way most organizations of any size are set up. Ironically,
conventional infrastructure is established in an effort to better management the
various pieces – unfortunately, that is usually not the result.
As companies grow, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain visibility of the
holistic picture – that is to say when an organization is small, one can see and touch
and manipulate the various pieces of the organization. As it grows, and the number
of resources and links in the chain explode, the ability to see all of the connections
diminishes exponentially.
In order to try to maintain control of a large organization, typically management will
begin dividing them up into various pieces – departments, divisions, projects, etc.
The idea, of course, is that these smaller pieces will be easier to control, and then if
we can control the outputs of these various pieces, we can gain a higher level of
control over the organization as a whole.
There are a slew of negative results that come out of doing this (and perhaps I’ll
cover in a separate blog at some point), but for now I want to address this within the
context of the project environment.
As we’ve discussed before, any project is a chain of dependencies – both task and
activity dependencies.
One of the common characteristics of the multi-project environment is the matrix
organization – resources belong to certain departments or groups. They are not
dedicated to specific projects. They are dedicated to their resource functional area –
and they are shared amongst any projects in process.
On the other hand, project managers are dedicated to a specific project – and they
have the responsibility and the accountability for the timely completion of their
project. Unfortunately for them, they have all of the accountability for on time
completion without any of the direct authority over the resources required to do the
work! The matrix below is representative of this type of environment:

This type of organization creates an inherent conflict within the system between the project
managers and the resource managers – project managers are tasked with finishing their
projects on time – which, of course, entails resourcing their tasks. Resource managers,
however, are tasked with supporting ALL projects.
It is easy to create conflicts between project managers and resource managers in the above
environment – particularly when they lack any kind of synchronization.
So what do we need in order to have control in a situation like that shown above?
We need a system that can give us status of the project at any point in time – no only at a
missed or hit milestone or due date. Ideally, such a system would include reporting like this:
By tracking the remaining work on the longest chain (the critical chain is the baseline) and
comparing it to the amount of buffer consumed, a project can be given an objective status
from day one – start date is known, end date is known, all tasks in between are fluid – as they
complete early or late (or are projected to complete early or late) the system can calculate
amount of baselined work completed versus the amount of baseline safety (project buffer)
consumed to create a ratio – a one to one ratio over the life of the project means it is on
time. If work is being completed at a faster rate the project will shown in the green. If safety
is being consumed at a greater rate than work is being completed, the project will show in the
yellow or red zones.

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