Hello List,

The question I have is about project management, and I realize that most 
people here are engineers; however, I'm sure that most of you worked on a 
project involving a team of people, and I would appreciate any insights you 
can provide.

The question is, how do you manage multiple projects of different duration? 
Suppose that you run a small business, and you have long-term projects (3-6 
months), short-term projects (1-6 weeks), and day-to-day "business" stuff. 
Now, since you have a small business you are responsible for managing all 
three (can't outsource them to other managers).

The problem is, how do you know what you should be doing at any given 
moment? You can't be doing just the long-term projects, and neglect the 
day-to-day activities, because you will run out of money. On the other hand, 
if you take care of all the day-to-day tasks, the long-term projects will 
never get done. Ideally, there needs to be a balance between the three.

Another related question is, have you used project management software that 
can keep track of several projects at a time? IMHO, MS Project et al are 
more suitable for large, single projects, and are not good at simultaneously 
keeping track of several projects of different duration and scope.

It seems to me that any project or individual task can be described in terms 
of duration, flexibility, importance, and urgency.

    Duration is self-explanatory.

    Flexibility means that the project can be rescheduled if needed. A 
Christmas party is an example of a non-flexible project because you can only 
do it on December 25. MASTERs conference is another such example -- you 
either attend it on July 26-29, or skip it altogether.

    Importance describes how severe the consequences will be if the project 
is not done by a certain date, or at all.

    Urgency is easy to understand, but somewhat difficult to define. I want 
to differentiate it from importance, however: sometimes, answering a phone 
call may be more urgent than working on an important project that has a long 
duration.

The ideal project management software would take some or all of these 
inputs, plus task dependencies, and produce a Gantt chart (or similar). 
Then, once in a while, you would be able to update some of the variables, 
and produce a new chart. What I don't like about the software that I've used 
so far is the fact that it forces you to prioritize and schedule the tasks 
yourself, instead of doing the scheduling for you. Since the process is 
purely analytical, I don't see why it can't be done by the computer (perhaps 
I'm missing something obvious).

Thank you in advance for your responses, and sorry for the long post.

Best regards,

Vitaliy 

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