Multi project management

A project management is difficult because of costs and schedules. A multi project management is even harder and if the different projects have different topics, then it becomes a challenge to ensure the planned schedules while complying with the costs. And the communication with the clients and the colleagues become pretty harsh. You have to be careful about informations you can share or not while staying meaningful and accurate.

In multiple project management, i will study the gestion of the schedules. Most of multiple projects are seen by the manager as a big project. What about a Program Management point of view? Schedules and costs? Program Management looks farther. This approach can solve problems which cannot be solved by a project point of view.

The management of different critical paths will be different with benefits goals and not deliverables goals. With this point of view, a multiple project or a complex project will aim short term deliverables but also long term benefits.

Background

First, I have to explain the difference between program management and project management. The best way to explain it can be this sentence: Project managers manage projects and program managers manage a portfolio of projects. So with this difference, we understand that a Multiple Projects Management (MPM) can be approached with a Project Management point of view or with a Program Management point of view.If we consider a MPM just as a big project then it is a Project Management point of view. However, if a MPM is a portfolio of projects then it is the Program point of view.

In a MPM, actually, the managers just look about the schedules and the costs. Here, the aim is only to finish the MPM and do not look farther. It is all about the deliverables and they forget the benefits. Moreover, most of managers think of MPM simply as the management of a list of individual projects, rather than a complex entity. So there are 2 steps before reaching a Program Management point of view.

Finally, managers think about multi-project management and program management as the same. But it is a separate concept: program management is a special case of multi-project management that has a single goal or purpose (for instance putting a man on the moon), whereas multi-project management generally treats the case of multiple independent goals. A program can be seen as a family of related projects and MPM either.

With this description of MPM and Program Management, let’s see how it can be related and used to solve uncertainty of schedules and why a MPM has not just deliverables goals but benefits goals too.