To best coordinate the management of multiple related projects, an organization should establish a program. A program allows for unified management and oversight, ensuring that the related projects align towards a common objective and facilitating the handling of interdependencies among them.
To ensure team members who are absent remain informed about assignments, the project manager is most likely to have prepared meeting minutes. Meeting minutes provide a detailed account of what was discussed, decided, and assigned during the meeting. They record attendance, topics covered, and action items, making it a comprehensive resource for those who could not attend the meeting.
A project manager who prefers immediate contact with team members to allow for faster response times and more interactive discussions should use synchronous communication methods. Synchronous communication involves real-time interactions, such as face-to-face meetings, phone calls, video conferences, or instant messaging, which facilitate quick information exchange and immediate feedback.
Once the project manager has defined the tasks, durations, resources, and costs, the next logical step is to seek baseline approval. This step involves getting formal acceptance from the project stakeholders on the defined scope, schedule, and budget, which ensures that everyone has a mutual understanding and agreement on the project plan. Approval of the baseline is crucial as it will serve as the standard for measuring project performance throughout its lifecycle.
When a project manager realizes that the project will not be completed on time due to resource constraints, the immediate and practical approach is to work with the functional managers to create a work-around. This allows for a swift mitigation of the resource constraints by possibly reallocating resources, prioritizing tasks, or finding other creative solutions to keep the project on track. This step directly addresses the root cause of the issue and tries to resolve it within the existing framework. Triggering the contingency plan or submitting a change request might be premature without first attempting to manage the constraints internally. Additionally, transferring the risk by hiring a new vendor or setting up an escalation meeting should be considered only if the workaround fails to resolve the issue.