In a multi-project organization, resources are always scarce; the work in progress is high; project staff often have more to do than they can manage. Inevitably, projects compete for the organization's scarce resources.
Project managers in a multi-project organization often only receive the necessary resources in theory. In practice, they constantly have to fight for resources (against other projects). This forces Thomas R., in his role as department manager, to repeatedly make priority decisions between projects that are all supposedly important. And a project that was making good progress yesterday suddenly gets mexico telegram data stuck because key resources are needed elsewhere. Far too much time and energy is wasted simply because his organization is unable to manage itself and set the necessary priorities. No resource manager or project manager can take on this responsibility. They can only try to limit the damage and often create new problems in the process.
Poison No. 2 – Multitasking in the project
If a manager - like Thomas R. - has an eye on and oversees many projects at the same time, then he is considered a good manager. For him, the term "multitasking" may have positive connotations. In the everyday life of his project managers, however, multitasking can be a real disaster. They experience multitasking in the harmful version: task A is interrupted in favor of task B because B is more important/urgent at the moment. Before task B is finished, however, B is also interrupted - in favor of C. And then task A suddenly becomes important again because it is realized that A cannot be left lying around so easily. Where multitasking is common practice, projects are more expensive than they need to be and, above all, take much longer than they need to. For Thomas R. and his new department, multitasking therefore acts like a deadly poison.