Work piles up as more demands are thrown at you. Something’s got to give, and too often, the consequences are a deadline missed, or a project cycle falling short of the original objectives.

It’s a project manager’s job to make sure teams are not overwhelmed and ensure team members are not having to make the decision of what’s most important. Project managers need to clearly communicate the sequence and order of priorities, based on business needs, to their team. It is not possible to do everything at once and it’s up to the project manager to communicate the consequences of any change or action.

Typically, the business requires a new project to be started immediately with deadlines. However, your team is already committed, and you don’t have the capacity to take on new work. What do you do?

The business decision defines the priority. You can only do what you can do, which includes fulfilling your responsibility to clearly communicate the impact of stakeholder decisions to your team. In addition, you need to set expectations with your stakeholders.

Key Takeaways:

  • Stay on course until you have clearly communicated the impact to any changes
  • Set expectations of the consequence of new priorities
  • Understand your capacity and be transparent
  • Priorities come from the business and stakeholder