Juggling can be dated back to the ancient Egyptians during the B.C. period where images depicting people tossing balls into the air were found etched in tombs. Today, however, we think of juggling as an act of entertainment in a circus performed by clowns or professionals like Jay Gilligan.
Too many balls in the air is fun if you’re watching a master juggler, but not when a team is working on a project. It can be catastrophic if the wrong one gets dropped.
As a project manager, it’s critical to stay focused and organize your team’s activities efficiently one task at a time. In doing so, your team, and work process, will stay on task, optimize addressing priorities, achieve quality results, and become more effective.
By nature, we want to take on as much as possible, and deliver productive results, even amid a multitude of complexities and goals. How can you ensure solid progress and avoid the inefficiencies of multitasking?
To maximize progress on your project, orchestrate your team’s workflow by resizing their tasks into shorter, smaller, more workable chunks, and coordinate them in order of importance and delivery demands. Only take on what you can complete.
Key Takeaways:
- Prioritize your tasks so team members understand which needs attention first
- Provide a managed method to change scope or priorities
- Guide the team to finish each task, one at a time, before moving forward
- When each milestone is reached, review and evaluate the next steps with the team
Photo credit: Dynamo