Multi-Project Management (MPM): Definition, Planning, and Tips
| Translated by Julian Hammer
Every company has several projects running in parallel that need to be planned, implemented and monitored. Here you have to keep an eye on dates, resources, and costs, and resources must be planned efficiently without overload or underload. This calls for multi-project management!
But what is multi-project management anyway, and how does it benefit my company? Multi-project management allows you to keep an eye on all projects, to align them with the overall corporate objective and to assign priorities accordingly. This is particularly important if several projects are running simultaneously that require access to the same resources.
In this article, you will learn how multi-project management works and how you can organize your resource and task planning across projects. We also give you tips on how to avoid overlapping deadlines and resources and how to recognize and reduce risks and follow-up costs. Use multi-project management for strategic decisions, prioritize the “right” projects to achieve your business goals and create competitive advantages for your company!
What Is Multi-Project Management?
Multi-project management means the consideration, selection, coordination, management, and review of all projects of a company, organization, or department. It is to be distinguished from project management, in which tasks, objectives, and resources are managed within a single project.
Multi-project management makes it possible to recognize in which projects there are overlaps or bottlenecks and where adjustments may be necessary. It also allows for a more even resource planning in multi-project management in line with prioritizations.
Effective multi-project management makes companies faster because it provides them with a holistic overview of all projects at any time. This means that postponed deadlines, customer changes, resource failures and their impact on other projects can be identified and counteracted in good time.
If several projects use the same resources, bottlenecks can quickly occur. This is usually the case for specialists with specialist knowledge, and these bottleneck resources make project planning in the company more difficult. Other resources such as money, time and materials are also limited and require good management.
Another challenge is the Allocation of priorities. Priorities are often assigned from the perspective of the department or many projects are classified as equally important. If the same resources are used, the question arises as to which project is more important and has thus priority. A change in the company’s strategic objectives also influences the allocation of priorities and must be taken into account in project planning and implementation. Here, multi-project management creates transparency.
Here, a distinction is made between strategic and operational multi-project management. In strategic multi-project management, the focus is on aligning projects with the corporate objective, while in operational MPM the actual project planning (rough and detailed planning) is implemented.
What Is Strategic Multi-Project Management?
Strategic multi-project management describes the alignment and regard of projects in terms of the company’s business strategy.
Strategic multi-project management enables, amongst other things:
- an overview of all project ideas and proposals,
- the identification and evaluation of risks inherent in the project,
- the identification and evaluation of opportunities,
- the identification and evaluation of synergies,
- transparency of the dependencies between projects,
- better and faster achievement of project objectives,
- optimization and standardization of project processing.
Bubble charts in the portfolio show risk values and help to prioritize projects
What Is Operational Multi-Project Management?
Operational multi-project management means the planning and controlling of projects across the board: scheduling and resource planning are no longer considered within a single project, but in connection with parallel projects. This makes the use of capacities more effective and enables cross-project controlling. Reporting, quality management, controlling and other elements of corporate management and leadership now also take place across all projects.
Furthermore, operational multi-project management has the following objectives:
- to use resources as effectively as possible to prevent overlappings or gaps in utilization,
- to complete projects on schedule to increase customer satisfaction and avoid costs due to delays,
- to ensure that projects stay within their budgets,
- to ensure that the required and agreed quality is maintained,
- to identify and minimize risks that could jeopardize the success of the project,
- to maintain communication with stakeholders to keep them informed of the project status and their requirements for the project.
Project overview in multi-project board and own watchlist
What Are the Different Aspects of Multi-Project Management?
In the context of multi-project management, a distinction is made between program management and project portfolio management. Program management comprises several projects which are related or share common objectives for achieving strategic objectives.
Project portfolio management, on the other hand, refers to the selection, prioritization, and effective handling of the project portfolio of a company. The portfolio manager ensures that the selected projects or project ideas are in line with the company’s strategic direction. A program manager, on the other hand, ensures that all projects that have been bundled into a program are successfully completed.
Why Is Multi-Project Management Important?
Multi-project management ensures that projects are not only aimed at success and an effective exploitation of resources, but also on the larger objective of the company.
It can also be used to solve organizational problems. The wasting of resources, like working time and machines, can be reduced and budgets can be used in a cost efficient way.
Companies that use multi-project management can react more quickly to changes on the market, in customer requirements, or in the company itself. This saves the company time and money and gives it a competitive edge.
Furthermore, multi-project management provides persons involved with current figures from the project at any time. This allows you to reduce and avoid errors arising from outdated data. It thus becomes easily recognizable whether a project exceeds the budget or deadlines cannot be met.
It also improves communication with the stakeholders as they always receive up-to-date reports which they can then actively integrate in the course of the project. This allows them to quickly recognize the need for action and coordinate it based on current data.
How to Plan and Control Multiple Projects in an Efficient Way?
First, take a look at your projects and decide which of themare to be viewed together , because they use the same resources or because similar know-how is required in another project. It is essential to keep an eye on the project and company objectives.
In the second step, priorities are to be defined. The subsequent resource allocation is carried out in accordance with these priorities. The allocation is based on (temporal) milestones/deadlines/key dates, resource availability, and importance for the strategic orientation of the company.
Once this is completed, create an outline plan. This should describe the projects in detail. Schedules, desired results, required resources, known risks, required expertise and dependencies on other projects should be included.
Once completed, allocate the required resources in the course of in-depth planning and create schedules through the analysis of team performance, customer satisfaction, and project results. These include the project objective, milestones, tasks, multi-project management and other parameters required for fulfillment. This is the only way to successfully implement a project. Subsequently, define possible risks and find solutions for coping with them.
Stakeholders should be kept up-to-date via regular reports. You should therefore define reports and the frequency in which they are to be created and always check the project status.
In order to be able to measure success during the projects, you should define key parameters within the production configuration. If these are not available, stakeholders often find it difficult to know whether the project is still on track or whether it is in danger of being delayed or going over budget.
To make time and resource planning in projects more effective, there are the following methods, among others:
- Use of resource planning software: It provides an overview of resource utilization across projects.
- Task prioritization: Clarifies which projects have priority and accelerates decision-making processes.
- Network technique (PERT/CPM): Visualizes dependencies between tasks in a project and identifies critical paths.
- Regular checks: Continuous controlling ensures that projects proceed according to plan and achieve their objectives.
Distribution of tasks, objectives and decisions in MPM
Defining clear objectives is decisive in multi-project management as well as in single projects. The overarching objectives must be determined in line with the corporate objectives and parameters must be defined in order to check compliance.
Tasks should be allocated based on ability and availabilities. They can be split up if necessary. If one employee is absent, it is easier for another to assume this part of the job. This way, tasks can also be processed much faster.
Plan tasks in an agile manner in the Kanban board
You should also make sure that persons involved have sufficient competence in decision making. This speeds up processes, as fewer consultations are required for decisions and action can be taken quickly.
When strategic decisions are made by the company management, for example due to changes in market conditions, this may lead to changes in the prioritization of projects. When it comes to projects that have already been started, major rescheduling may be necessary, in which case multi-project software is indispensable for support.
What role does the project management office (PMO) play in multi-project management?
In order to successfully introduce and implement multi-project management, it is reasonable to implement a project management office. This supports the project managers and ensures that processes and methods are standardized. It also benefits project managers and the company as a whole when it comes to the creation of standardized project plans, budget, and resource planning.
A project management office also checks upcoming projects in terms of their realizability regarding resource availability and alignment with the corporate objective. It bundles corporate knowledge and offers training, workshops, and coaching for project managers, to help them to better complete their tasks and live up to the requirements.
Furthermore, a project management office checks the implementation of compliance guidelines. If there are deviations, corrective measures are initiated to ensure that all requirements and specifications are met. By the means of continuous reporting and measures for quality assurance, such as the definition of standards or the specification of guidelines, the PMO ensures that the requirements of the project are met.
The project management office can standardize recurring processes in projects and make sure that they are used in all projects. Knowledge can also be bundled at this point in the company and repetition errors can be avoided. Stakeholders benefit from a PMO in the same way, as they can rely on up-to-date figures and the obligation to report.
Project team performance can also be improved if a project management office creates incentive systems that are particularly useful for distributed teams through the analysis of team performance, customer satisfaction, and project results. For this purpose, clearly achievable objectives must be set. If objectives are always too high and can never be achieved, this can lead to frustration. If they are too simple, motivation and innovation may decrease.
Incentive systems can be individual or team-related. Ensure that your employees can use their potential and achievements beyond their project work, and that they are evaluated and developed. This way, you promote your employees, expand the know-how in your company, retain your employees and gain an edge over competitors.
How to Optimize Resource Management and Team Coordination in Multiple Projects?
In order to optimize resource management and team coordination in companies, required resources and specifications must be set out clearly and resource allocation must be centralized. Simultaneously, resource allocation should be flexible and easy to adjust to changes that occur in the course of the project.
Also provide a clear definition for a requirement profile for resources through the analysis of team performance, customer satisfaction, and project results. This will allow you to find the resources needed and allocate them. It may turn out that the requirements are met by another resource which can then be used for the project. Here, multi-project management software can provide perfect and quick assistance and help you to find the required resources.
Scheduling of resources and resource requests from other departments
Good communication in project teams is very important for the success of a project. Direct communication channels like chat and activity tracking instead of communication via e‑mails, as well as clear specifications in the planned tasks, help to prevent miscommunication. Our software PLANTA Project allows users to exchange across projects.
If conflicts do arise, a resource manager can provide solutions. Bottlenecks in resource planning represent one major reason for conflicts. For resource planning in project management, PLANTA Project provides aimed assistance and allows you to save time and costs.
Which Project Management Software is Suitable for Multi-Project Management?
The following types of software are suitable for implementing projects in multi-project management:
- traditional project management software which allows you to create project schedules, budgets, tasks, and many other project-relevant information
- agile project management software which enables flexible task and project planning
- industry-related project management software which is designed to meet the needs and requirements of particular industries
- open source software which is provided free of charge
- cloud based project management software which can be accessed via internet
- collaborative project management software which is focused on collaboration
The most suitable solution will provide you with a combination of all of these types of PM software, offering full flexibility. With the PLANTA Project — multi-project management tool, you can optimize project planning, control and project completion for all your projects running in parallel. Furthermore, PLANTA Project is perfectly suited for collaboration in project teams and can be used industry-independent. The software is available as an SaaS and on-premises solution and can be used web-based or as a client-server system.
You can store and manage all documents in one place so that everyone involved has the same, up-to-date data. This reduces errors due to outdated data, avoids duplicate data management and standardizes the presentation from different sources.
How Is the Performance of Multi-Project Management Controlled and Evaluated?
To define the project progress, key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics should be defined. Only clearly defined key figures show deviations with precision. Status reports provide regular information on this. Audits show how good the defined standards and guidelines are and where there is room for improvement.
For monitoring the project progress, Gantt charts, Earned Value Management (EVM), Milestone Trend Analyses (MTA), Kanban boards can be created. All of these controlling features are included in the PLANTA Project multi-project management software.
Regular analyses and the creation of status reports should always be carried out in order to detect even small changes and take action if necessary. If the deviations are still at an early stage, they can be rectified more quickly and with simpler means. If changes in the project have already become established and grown, they can influence other projects and jeopardize their objectives.
FAQ
How to deal with concurrent project objectives in multi-project management?
If there are concurrent project objectives, our software helps with prioritization and planning. It offers simulations for checking alternatives before planning any resources.
What role does prioritization play in task planning?
Corporate culture plays an essential role. If the company is eager to establish a culture of clear communication and learn from mistakes, lessons learned in multi-project management help them to avoid mistakes which were made in former projects and to prepare future projects in the best possible way.
How can you ensure that all projects are in line with the company’s overall strategy?
When companies plan their projects strategically in portfolios, they have a better overview of the opportunities and risks and can recognize which projects in the portfolio are more in line with the company’s objectives.
