How many projects can a project manager handle without losing overview or impacting the output quality negatively?

Many project managers have one assignment at a time. This allows for in-depth focus and 100% attention for this project. The amount of work to be performed can still be demanding, but with one project, your span of focus is limited to this project. Fortunately, not all projects require a full-time project manager, a part-time assignment is more common. Personally, I like the diversity of having several assignments at the same time.

So, what do you do if you have an assignment for two days a week? You search for another opportunity to offer your services as a project manager. In the case you have 2 assignments, your attention will be divided over the assignments. In the Scrum/ Agile approach, you scheduled your Daily call at the start of the day, resulting in a busy morning to host the different meetings and follow up afterwards.

During the day you ‘switch’ easily between the two different assignments by having meetings with stakeholders, updating the planning and progress reports for the Steering Committee. Any issues that occur will be addressed to discuss and mitigated, in most cases there is plenty of room to handle the two assignments in parallel.

Two assignments from one customer is even more ideal (as part of a Programme, for example). Many of the stakeholders will be the same, the relationships build for one project to benefit the second project, you get to know the organisation and business better. This makes my life as a project manager more easy, one organisation and culture to deal with, allowing for additional attention to secondary project dynamics, like team spirit. Having two assignments from one customer is not always the case, so you must juggle between the two assignments and divide attention.

Adding a third assignment makes your life as a project manager even more challenging. It is a constant juggle to switch between meetings, not only technical (in Teams I need to sign out from one account and sign in into another when using different (customer) accounts), but also functional and mental (I need to ’switch’ in my head between assignments and prepare before I can enter a next meeting). You must switch vastly on topic, content, and people involved in the meeting.

From experience, I can tell that supporting three different projects (from three different customers) is my maximum. To add another one is a definite no-go, it will have an even bigger impact on your agenda and a constant switch during a day on topics and content. That will in the end impact the quality of my output and with The Independables, we strive for high-quality output and satisfied customers to build long-lasting relationships.

How do I deal with several assignments at the same time: A couple of tips from my side:

– Work with buckets of 2 hours to block your agenda for an assignment to work on specific tasks
– When you host Daily Scrum meetings, create a cadence in the morning for one assignment and early afternoon for another assignment
– Have one overview in your agenda where several (customer) agendas are grouped, so you always have an overview of your available time
– Double check every email you send: from the right mailbox (if you have several), the right signature?
– Use chat functionality to communicate with different project team members for quick Q&A

What is your maximum number of different projects you can deal with at the same time? I’m interested to hear your feedback and any struggles you might have when coping with two or more different project management assignments. And also like to receive additional tips how you deal with situation like that.