Managing what’s out of your control
Sometimes I have too many clients. Other times I’m looking for things to do.
When working for a consulting company and a customer signs a contract, they want to get started right away. Yet when a customer, mid-project, decides to delay their launch by a week or a month, we generally don't pull our resources out and move them to other engagements. Resource planning is a constant challenge (and one which I don't directly control, unfortunately.) This is a "feast or famine" business, and I have to play the hand I'm dealt at any given time.
That being said, I am always trying to do good work, be productive, and continue to improve personally and professionally - whether I'm busy or slow.
During the slow periods:
Fewer projects allows me to focus more attention on each one. I have time for proactive reporting - with more details, research, and explanations. I can spend more time in the details on planning sessions for the customer, prioritizing upcoming work streams and evaluating potential risks and issues.
This additional work also bills more hours to the customer/project, so I need to be careful about effort vs budget.
Extra time during the day also allows me to sharpen my tools. I get to spend time creating or enhancing project template files, reading industry news and trends, learning more about the technical details of our product offerings, and doing training exercises specific to project management.
These activities fall by the wayside when I get loaded (or overloaded) with client business.
More projects forces me to move quickly and stay at a higher level, delegating tasks and using short standup or sync sessions to keep teammates on the same page.
I become more reactive to project needs, sometimes just running from one meeting to the next all day long.
Reporting is important, but when running above capacity I don’t always have time to review each report and make notes, comments, and recommendations. Sometimes just getting the reports sent out is all I can do.
On the plus side, giving less attention to each individual client is good for the budget, which may allow my development team to dig deeper into an issue or come up with a superior solution than they otherwise would have. If not, then it might just help us stay under budget overall.
Busy times also force the question of work-life balance to the forefront. In theory, I’m in meetings almost all day long, and then I would need to spend several hours in the evening to do my work. In reality, I want to maintain my reputation of doing high-quality work, consistently, and getting projects closed on time and on budget. I am also reasonably well compensated. Sometimes this means I have to work a little extra. But “a little extra” is a blurry line, and if it became excessive or routine I would need to make some adjustments. But this is a different conversation altogether.
Bottom line:
The question isn't how many projects would I like to have at once, or how many can I handle, or even how many do I have currently. The question is, "Whether you have too much time or too many projects, how can you be more effective?"
- Chris Butterworth