Each architecture project on your plate is unique in its own way: a different project owner, different goals, and a different end product. However, what each project has in common is that they have a variety of tasks, each of different priority level.
In effect, you and your team must be able to take a step back and determine where you need to focus your time now to find the most efficient way to approach all of the items in all of your projects.
This PowerPoint covers:
- evaluating the biggest challenges that architect’s face when taking on multiple projects at a time
- focusing on the differences between a project owner’s needs and your firm’s needs
- the LIFO principle
- the Eisenhower Matrix, and
- resolving your biggest challenges as an architecture firm, and how Priority Matrix can help
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Whether you are managing 5, 10, 15, or more than 20 architecture projects, each with a variety of tasks, priorities, and moving initiatives, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Thus, you must take the time to find a way to ultimately keep track of each deadline, prioritize the tasks in your projects by their importance and urgency, as well as keep track of those loose ends.
In this article, we will present easy and effective strategies in order to help you and your team achieve full visibility so that everybody knows what is going on amongst your multiple projects.
Challenges Faced When Balancing Multiple Projects
1. Deadlines
When you are involved in multiple projects, it is your job not only to deliver what the project owner asked for, but to deliver whatever that is within a reasonable time period, or the date when you both clearly communicate that the project will be done by.
As a result, you have various overlapping deadlines that you must meet sitting in all of your projects. If you do not have a plan in action, it is also easy to miss deadlines which creates stress for you, your team, and the project owner.
2. Shifting Priorities
These are those moving milestones that occur throughout the project. As you know, things come up in projects, and sometimes this requires figuring out which priorities are the most important and time sensitive and which ones can wait. What we mean by shifting priorities are those tasks when the priority level changes with time, so as a result, you must be able to think quickly and proficiently when determining what should be focused on.
3. Keeping Track of Loose Ends and Small Details
With multiple projects consisting of even more tasks and directions from project owners, it is very easy to forget small details. When those small details are forgotten, project owners might lose trust in your team’s abilities, and it can push project timelines back.
4. Overseeing Team Members and Managing Staff
In each project, you have different employees responsible for completing their tasks as they were told to do so. Thus, sometimes it feels impossible to check on each team member’s progress each day to make sure you and them are on the same page.
5. Time Management and Scheduling
Just as in any field, there are only so many hours in the work day to make sure that everything is getting finished according to plan and deadlines are being met. Keeping this in mind, it can be challenging to set schedules when multiple deadlines need to be met from each project you have taken on, whether these deadlines must be met in the same day, or week.
Balancing the Needs of Various Project Owners
One of the most important goals of any Principal Architect or Project Manager it to deliver to each project owner’s needs to ensure customer satisfaction. So, when that project owner calls you telling you they need things sped up or changes to be made, often, your natural response is “If you need it, I can do it.” Sure, you might not be 100% sure that whatever they need is possible, but you figure that you can do it anyway.
As a result, you may ignore some high priority items in your other projects, which ultimately causes a vicious cycle of not focusing on those high priority items that were there in the first place – this can quickly cause things to go awry.
So how do you balance the needs of all project owners?
You must focus on what is most important and most urgent, not which of your project owner’s call wolf the loudest because eventually, each project owner from each of your many projects is going to need something that will set you off task.
One way you can put this plan into action is by not following the acronym LIFO, or Last In, First Out. How often are you working on an assignment that needs your utmost attention when you are interrupted by a phone call or email from a project owner, demanding your guidance and expertise? As a result, you are focusing on the most recent task that was assigned to you (or a call or email), displacing your energy from what was important in the first place.
Unfortunately, if you follow LIFO when managing multiple projects, you are sacrificing a lot, such as:
- Meeting deadlines
- Focusing on tasks that are the highest priority
- Time management
Using the Eisenhower Method
If you were managing a couple projects with a small amount of tasks in each project, it would be easy to list your tasks in a linear to-do list and check them off as they were completed. However, when managing multiple projects with multiple initiatives in all of them, a linear to-do list will not cut it.
The Eisenhower Method of Time Management is a prioritization tool created by the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower to help him take control over what he needed to get done with his little time and resources. This tool is extremely helpful in the architecture industry because it helps you decide what to focus your time and effort on between all of your projects.
To use the Eisenhower Method you must take your linear to-do list, or everything between all of your projects that needs to be completed and divide each task according to how critical it is and how immediate it is.
As a result, you get four quadrants:
- Critical and Immediate
- Critical but not Immediate
- Not Critical but Immediate
- Uncategorized
It is best to spend your time in the Critical and Immediate quadrant because these are items that take the highest priority.
This is a good way to prioritize your tasks whether you do this individually or with your entire team because it helps you “fill those slots” of what will be accomplished today, for example if you have 50 tasks to do between all of your projects and time today to accomplish 3 of those tasks.
Using this strategy guarantees that you and your team are spending time where you should be, so next time you get an email or phone call, instead of automatically focusing on it, you decide which quadrant it should go in and if it is more or less important than other tasks in that quadrant.
Priority Matrix Overview
Priority Matrix is a digitalized version of the Eisenhower Matrix – a platform for team coordination built especially to help teams manage multiple projects by centralizing information and providing better visibility of project priorities across the board to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
The Eisenhower Matrix for Architects
- Fires: All of those things that were unexpected or not in your original project plan, but really need to be covered
- Planned Tasks: Those routine tasks that you are always going through when you are doing your architecture projects
- Resources: All of the files that have to do with that project
- Inbox: For your emails, which become tasks
In regards to the inbox quadrant, Priority Matrix integrates with Outlook, so you can set it up so that every email from a project owner gets forwarded into this system, similar to Outlook folders; however, in Priority Matrix, these emails can become tasks. This helps ensure that nothing slips through the cracks. This article explains how you can set up automatic forwarding of emails into projects in Priority Matrix.
Scheduling and Maintaining Visibility of Concurrent Deadlines
Priority Matrix helps improve visibility across architecture teams as Principals, Project Managers, and team members can open Priority Matrix and quickly see each priority across all of your projects.
First of all, it makes scheduling tasks easier because you can see which times have a lot of deadlines, and which of your employees have the most work.
With each person being able to see what needs to be done by when, this helps each team member finish what they are working on, so that deadlines are met. This also gives everybody a good view of those overlapping deadlines so your team can step up their work when needed.
Secondly, the platform also helps achieve ultimate visibility by updating in real time, keeping your team aware of any changes that are occurring, which helps reduce the challenge of shifting priorities. When priorities change, your team is the first to see and start working on the newest high priority.
Tracking Loose Ends and Managing Tasks
Priority Matrix is a centralized platform that allows you to easily keep track of staff assignments, who is working on what, as well as progress.
Within each task, you are able to:
- delegate the assignment and their picture will be on the task so you can visually grasp who is doing what
- communicate through the in-app chat to answer any questions and share updates
- set due-dates, making each team member more accountable for meeting their deadlines
- share files, screenshots, and notes in each separate task, keeping everything organized and in one place
- track progress using the progress bar which goes from 0 to 100
Why Architects Love Priority Matrix
We have many architecture firms who are managing multiple projects using Priority Matrix to effectively prioritize and get their teams on the same page. Here are some reasons why:
- Priority Matrix helps keep schedules and deadlines visible and uniform across many projects
- It facilitates weekly planning meetings by providing a real-time agenda
- Gives you peace of mind knowing nothing has slipped through the cracks
- It’s the single source of truth to keep your team on the same page and increase accountability
- It reduces internal email traffic by providing a platform for communication
The Master View
One of the top features for architects is the Master View capability to help you step back and take a big picture look at all of your items across all of your projects.
Architects like to organize their master view by:
- Due Date: Tasks that are overdue, due today, due this week, etc.
- Quadrants: To help you determine which are your high priority tasks, fires, and planned tasks
Gantt Chart
The Gantt Chart is built based on the due dates that you put into the system for each task. This will help you visually catch those overlapping tasks so that you plan ahead.
Reports That Update In Real Time
Reports will give you an overview of what your team members have completed in a specific time period.
For example, you can see how many projects your team has completed this week, who completed them, when the projects were finished, and when the original due date was.
With this information, you are able to see who is making the most deadlines, and who is not meeting their deadlines.
A Heat Map Of Your Due Dates
Take a look at which dates are the most crowded so you can try to spread out some work. This prevents your team from running into situations where there are so many tasks due in one day.
Outlook Integration
Send those huge CAD files to those outside of your organization. In Priority Matrix, you can send files straight into anyone’s Outlook inbox.
Try Priority Matrix for Free
What are the next steps? Start your Priority Matrix trial with 3-4 people who you work the most closely with. If you have any questions, send us over an email to support@appfluence.com, and we will be happy to help!