Running Concurrent Projects: The dumbest business decision
Have you ever worked on multiple projects at the same time? This article goes into great detail, showing that math and science cost more money and delay delivery.
Juggling multiple projects simultaneously is, without mincing words, an astoundingly poor decision that plagues far too many businesses today. It's a classic scenario: an organisation swamped with more work than its team can handle, leading to the ill-advised strategy of declaring multiple initiatives as top priorities and running them concurrently.
But let's cut to the chase—how many projects are you or your organisation currently buried under? When I consult or train, I always ask this question. Most people I ask are working on three or four projects simultaneously. What gobsmacks me is how many “agile” teams are working on multiple projects at once.
The stark reality is that this approach needs to be revised; it's fundamentally logically and scientifically flawed, with repercussions far more severe than many leaders care to understand.
Gerald Weinberg's insights on context switching in "Quality Software Management" only scratches the surface of the problem. The truth is much grimmer, and its high time we dive deep into the magnitude of the mess this creates.
The example scenario
To simplify the math, I will assume three concurrent projects, all roughly the same size of two months each. They are projects Red, Blue and Green. Due to conventional wisdom, the leaders have requested that the team work on all three projects at the same time as they are all very important and the business's top priority. Also, people will be allocated 33% to each project.
Just so you know, this scenario tries to keep this simple and not factor in other things. Those things will likely make the result numbers worse. More complex problems will only make the results worse, so see this as the best case.
On Product Index
The "On-Product Index" serves as an index to gauge the proportion of time allocated to direct product development instead of time spent on ancillary activities. For instance, an On-Product Index of 80% signifies that 80% of the time is dedicated to essential work, leaving 20% for other tasks such as meetings. The higher the number, the better, indicating work being done. But note that it is impossible to reach 100%. Based on data and experiences with multiple organisations and teams, the typical On-Product Ratio fluctuates between 60% and 80%, averaging 74%.
When everything is priority one, nothing is priority one.
Conventional wisdom has dictated that all three projects (Blue, Red, and Green) run simultaneously. They are all important and of equal priority. The core belief is that running them concurrently will deliver the overall outcome of all three projects sooner.
I will now debunk this logic by going into the math and science and showing seven axioms where each one compounds the problem and makes it worse. The net result is a lot worse than you think.
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