Monday Quickie - 6 Steps in Managing Multiple Projects as a Consultant

You’ve found yourself in consultant heaven having more clients and projects than you know what to do with.  Like a dog chasing the car you’ve managed to catch the car (lot’s of projects to keep you busy) but don’t know what to do with it (how to deliver successfully) now that you have it.
 
If you have multiple projects, multiple clients and or just more work than you know what to do with consider these steps to improve your day and operating rhythm so you can focus on successfully delivering on your projects while keeping your happy customers:
 
Communication Protocol – happy customers are informed customers.  Customers don’t like to be treated like mushrooms – fed piles of crap while being kept in the dark.  Establish a daily or weekly communications agenda which keeps you on track of your client updates and check-in’s.  Consider creating a communication checklist via Microsoft Excel to help with consistency. (or see ‘Invest’ for tools to help with this)
 
Invest – don’t be cheap.  Make the investment in a project management tool which will help you stay on track with your projects while giving you a professional interface to use for customer presentations, etc.  There are literally dozens of tools you can choose from like Asana, Jira, Microsoft Project, etc. When your work is structured, nice and tidy, your results will reflect it.
 
Establish Customer Expectations – read this link on how to set customer expectations
 
Get Organized – everything from your work space to how you spend your time should be constantly reviewed and altered to improve performance.  Time management is key to your success, ability to deliver and to obtain more work.  Find ways to reduce busy work, unnecessary check ins or onsite visits with clients.  Sometimes visits are crucial and needed, but not always. When reviewing your actual project tasks create different to do lists/ project task lists for each client then merge them so you have one list broken down by all of your clients and required activities per day and week.  (FYI – most project management tools do this for you while producing Gantt Charts which can be shared with customers – another reason to invest in technology.)
 
Delegate – Undoubtedly there are aspects of your projects you just don’t like to do yourself. Do you know other people that can help you with some of your work? It pays off to have a small trusted group of allies, other consultants such as yourself, that you can bring in from time to time to help with various parts of the project.  This allows you to focus on the work you enjoy most. 
 
Say No – one of the most powerful things any professional can do is to say ‘No’ to things or opportunities which don’t align with their key focus.  This goes back to how we choose our time and where we spend it.  We can’t be everything to everyone.  If a customer makes a request that is outside of your capabilities kindly say ‘No’ then point them in the right direction to a possible solution elsewhere. #gogiver
 
Key Take Away:
Consider investing in a project management tool to streamline your work while having an organized infrastructure for your consulting business
 
Action Item:
Review all the projects you have concurrently and make a task and timeline list.  Embedded those tasks into your week based on the deliverables then begin working towards fulfillment of those tasks.