Businesses often have multiple projects that need to be managed at the same time. Managing multiple projects can be very challenging and is made more difficult when each project involves a different team, timeline and deliverables.
This is why most businesses require a powerful Multiple project planner tool to help them manage all of their projects in an efficient manner.
A good project planner tool can provide much-needed visibility into how each project is progressing, who is responsible for what tasks and what deadlines are approaching.
By having detailed information on every aspect of their projects, businesses are better able to coordinate efforts across teams, track progress against goals and ensure that everyone understands their roles in the success of the business’s overall objectives.
But with so many choices out there, picking the best one for your organization can be intimidating. To make it easier for you, we checked out one of the top project planners on the market – nTask.
nTask is a project management software that provides teams with the tools necessary to plan, organize, and track their projects. It is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive while also providing powerful features such as task dependencies, deadlines, and notifications.
With an easy-to-use interface and customizable templates for quickly creating new projects or organizing existing ones
nTask makes it simple to get started on any collaborative project.
But before we dive into nTask, let’s look at the challenges and cure when tackling multiple projects.
Multi project planning and scheduling challenges
Tracking Multiple projects is the process of allocating resources, determining task duration and sequencing tasks to produce an optimal plan. It can be a daunting task for organisations due to the complexity of managing multiple tasks with various deadlines, dependencies and constraints.
The primary challenges associated with multi-project planning and scheduling are:
1) Lack of visibility: As projects become more complex it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of all details.
This includes resource availability, cost budgets, task sequences and other variables which could impact a project’s timeline or budget. This lack of visibility often leads to delays in completion due to not anticipating problems that occur at any point during the process.
2) Resource allocation: Ensuring that resources are used efficiently across multiple projects can be challenging. One team may have too much work while another team might not have enough.
Additionally, when there is overlap between tasks from different projects it can lead to further complications in terms of prioritizing certain resources.
3) Time management: When trying to optimise timeliness between multiple projects this involves careful coordination between teams. Managing multiple projects requires each project within the portfolio to be coordinated so that there are no unexpected delays.
4) Risk Management: With multi-project schedules containing intricate dependencies and plenty of moving parts come risk management issues.
This includes:
- Identifying potential risks early and
- How best to manage them if they should arise during the course of a project’s execution phase.
Moreover, communication among team members should be emphasized for tracking multiple projects to create consensus on goals and execution.
These conversations should also include discussion about potential risks associated with certain strategies being considered so that instances such as scope creep or misstated deadlines can be avoided altogether with stronger oversight from senior personnel if required.
How do you do multiple project planning and scheduling?
Multi-project planning and scheduling is the process of managing multiple projects at once in order to achieve organizational objectives. It involves setting project goals, allocating resources, assigning tasks and deadlines, tracking progress, and evaluating performance.
To do this successfully, it’s important to break down each project into smaller tasks that can be tracked over time or to better gauge progress towards completion.
Here are some steps you should implement while tracking multiple projects.
1. Get an overall view of your resource use
This requires taking into account how many resources are available for each project, what tasks need to be done, and when each task needs to be completed.
Once you have an understanding of available resources and tasks, you can then plan out which tasks should take priority or come first.
You should also consider dependencies between projects that could affect their timeline or require certain tasks to be done before others can begin.
For example, if one team is starting a project before another team has finished theirs, it will likely impact both teams’ timelines due to the dependency between them.
By keeping track of these dependencies ahead of time it helps ensure that all teams stay on track with their projects instead of running into unexpected delays or bottlenecks along the way.
Once you have identified all the necessary resources, dependencies between projects, and important dates associated with each task or milestone it’s time to create a schedule that clearly shows when each task needs to start and finish as well as its place within the larger scope of work for all projects involved in your multi-project plan.
A critical part of creating this schedule is having visibility across all teams involved so everyone knows what they need to do when, who’s responsible for certain tasks or milestones, etc., while still being flexible enough in case things don’t go as planned due unforeseen circumstances beyond anyone’s control (e.g., natural disasters).
Creating this type of overall view helps keep everyone informed about progress towards completing individual tasks as well as collective progress.
This helps manage multiple projects within reasonable timelines while helping identify potential problems before they arise. That way, changes can be made quickly if needed helping prevent unnecessary delays down the line affecting subsequent stages.
2. Use a collaborative approach
Multiple-project planning involves coordinating work between different teams, resources, and stakeholders, multi-project planning and scheduling must be handled in a carefully planned and organized way.
One way of doing this is to not plan in isolation; instead, use a multiple project planning tool that can allow all parties to view the same data updates at the same time (e.g., project management software).
Such tools allow each team to plan its own tasks independently in line with the shared goals of the overall project timeline. This helps maintain transparency across all involved parties while they are working together towards an end goal.
Using tools also allows for tasks to be scheduled as dependencies rather than siloed individual projects, which allows for better resource allocation management across multiple projects at once.
The outputs from multi-project planning can help visualize where potential clashes may occur between dependent activities or timelines.
That helps your team resolve them before they become issues or delays down the line. Moreover, it is a useful metric for how efficiently resources have been used over set periods of time (e.g., capacity utilization).
3. Split up your project and resource planning processes
The next step in managing multiple projects is to separate the project planning from the resource planning.
Project Planning: This part of multi-project scheduling involves organizing each individual project into manageable tasks and assigning them deadlines or due dates.
It can be beneficial to view all of the projects at once when doing this so that one can gain an overview of their progress and plan accordingly.
Once detailed plans are made for each project, it’s time to move on to resource planning.
Resource Planning: Resource planning will involve determining which individuals, tools, or materials will be used for each task across all of the projects.
During this stage, you’ll need to ensure that there are enough resources available (people/tools/materials) at any given time for every project so that work isn’t delayed or hindered by a lack of availability.
Once you have identified what resources are needed it’s important to create an overall timeline based on these parameters so that everyone involved knows what they need to complete their tasks.
To sum it up, multi-project planning and scheduling require careful organization, coordination and proper estimation of timelines involved with each task in order for it to run smoothly and efficiently as possible.
By separating out the two processes involved (project planning & resource planning) one can gain a better understanding of how everything fits together as well as make more informed decisions about how best to manage their workloads across different projects simultaneously.
4. Set priorities
Prioritize the work that needs to be done, by taking into account factors such as cost, available personnel and materials, deadlines, and so on. Once you have determined a priority list for each project (in terms of urgency), you can then assign resources accordingly.
For example, if Project A is deemed more important than Project B, you will likely allocate more resources (both personnel and material) towards Project A than you would for Project B – considering it has a higher priority.
You can also adjust the number of people assigned to each project, or shift people from one task to another depending on their availability or skill set; all these decisions should be based on what makes the most sense in terms of getting tasks completed efficiently with results meeting expectations.
Use multi-project scheduling and planning software
Multiple project planner tools allow users to optimize their workflow by tracking progress on multiple projects. Moreover, the tools provide visibility into deadlines, resource availability, costs, and others.
At its core, a multi-project scheduling and planning software solution helps organizations make better decisions when it comes to resource optimization as well as identifying potential problems before they occur.
It allows them to maintain clear overviews of progress across different projects while encouraging collaboration between teams working on different aspects of a particular project.
The software typically includes features such as timeline views which show the due dates for each task assigned to a given project along with details such as its priority level, start date end date etc.
The system also provides a Gantt chart view so that users can track their work visually in an organized way.
Additionally, the software can be configured with various alert systems that notify managers when tasks are overdue or nearing completion thus enabling more efficient decision-making processes.
Many modern solutions come equipped with features such as real-time reporting insights that capture data from all active projects so stakeholders can monitor performance metrics such as budget overages or delays in cost efficiencies etc., allowing them to find ways for improvement almost instantly.
This type of comprehensive approach helps teams stay connected even when separated by distance or time zones ensuring everyone is aware of what needs to be done next no matter where they are located.
Let’s understand multi-project planning by an example;
Your company may have three different projects running at once
- A new website development effort
- A customer onboarding initiative
- An app launch plan.
The first step would be to create separate timelines for each individual project via multiple project planner tools. This will help with resource allocation as well as provide visibility into which parts of the process are taking longer than expected.
Then managers should assign roles and responsibilities for each project based on expertise level – both internally within the organization as well as externally with outside vendors if needed.
Once the scope of work is determined for each task within the multi-project timeline, it’s important to set deadlines in order to ensure the successful completion of the project.
Checkpoints should also be established along the way so that progress can be monitored throughout all stages of development.
This will help identify issues before they become major roadblocks towards completion or require too much time from team members to fix them after they’ve already been completed incorrectly.
The final in the given scenario is evaluation. This should take place throughout all steps in order to ensure quality control standards are met while mitigating risks associated.
Any changes made during the implementation of these plans/schedules before their final execution takes place successfully without hindrance or delay.
nTask: The best multiple-project planner
Finding the perfect project management software that meets all your requirements can be quite a task. With so many features, capabilities, and tools available, it’s difficult to narrow down the best option for you.
But if you’re looking for a multiple-project planner with powerful features and an easy-to-use interface, then nTask is your answer.
Simplify project management
with nTask today!
Here are 5 features that make nTask the best multiple-project planner around:
1. Task Management – With nTask, you can easily organize and manage multiple projects with task lists and subtasks. This feature makes it easy to break down big tasks into smaller more manageable chunks so you can complete them in a timely manner.
2. Team Collaboration – nTask also allows teams to collaborate on projects in real time with its interactive chat feature. You can keep everyone updated on the project’s progress. Make sure tasks are completed on time without any delays or miscommunications.
3. Time Tracking – nTask’s time tracking feature helps you better manage resources by tracking the time spent on tasks and projects by individual team members or across an entire team. This way, you know exactly how much time each task is taking up and can adjust resources accordingly for more efficient workflow management.
4. Project Reports – With nTask’s extensive reporting capabilities, you can get detailed overviews of your projects at any given moment. This includes timeline summaries, completion rate overviews, budget summaries, and resource utilization reports.
5. Automation & Integration – Automation is key when managing complex projects with multiple stakeholders involved. With nTask’s powerful automation capabilities, you can set up automated reminders and notifications to help ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Besides, it easily integrates with other popular apps like Slack, G Suite (Gmail & Google Calendar), Outlook & Office 365 (Email & Calendar), and Trello (Project Management) so you don’t have to worry about data transfer or syncing issues between different apps/ platforms.
All these features make nTask one of the most comprehensive multiple-project planners out there. If you’re looking for a powerful yet simple-to-use tool to help manage your projects from start to finish then give nTask a try today.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a multiple-project planner solution that can help you manage multiple projects, then nTask is the way to go.
With features like task tracking and Kanban boards, it can easily keep your team organized and on track with their tasks. From managing deadlines to assigning tasks to collaboration tools, nTask has everything you need for your multiple project planning needs.
With its advanced features and ease of use, it’s no wonder why nTask is one of the best project management apps for teams around.
