Prioritise competing projects using weighted criteria rather than whoever asked most recently.
Project Management
Managing Multiple Concurrent Projects and Competing Priorities
Practical techniques for project managers running multiple concurrent projects: resolving competing priorities, managing shared resources and protecting delivery when every sponsor calls their work urgent.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Running one project well is demanding; running four or five at once, each with a sponsor convinced their work is the priority, is a different problem entirely. This course addresses the specific challenges of concurrent project management: deciding which project gets attention when all of them are behind, managing a shared pool of people who are double- or triple-booked, and keeping enough visibility across projects to spot a conflict before it causes a missed deadline. In place of generic time management, participants work with methods built for this situation, including weighted prioritisation criteria that survive a sponsor's objection, a resource heat map that shows conflicts across a whole project set, and a personal system for tracking commitments that does not collapse under interruption. Difficult conversations get direct attention too: telling one sponsor their project will slip because another has higher priority, negotiating a shared resource with another project manager, and deciding when to say no to a new project rather than accepting it and quietly under-delivering on all of them. Competing priorities stop being a source of constant firefighting and become a structured, defensible set of decisions.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Build a resource view across several projects that reveals conflicts before they cause delay.
Negotiate a shared resource with another project manager without damaging the working relationship.
Communicate a priority-driven delay to a sponsor in terms that are honest and defensible.
Design a personal tracking system that holds up across frequent interruption and context switching.
Decide when to decline or defer a new project rather than absorbing it into an already full load.
Identify which of several struggling projects should be stopped, paused or descoped.
Who Should Attend
Project managers responsible for delivering several projects at the same time.
Programme coordinators balancing resource and schedule conflicts across a project set.
Functional managers whose staff are shared across multiple concurrent projects.
Consultants and contractors managing parallel engagements for different clients.
Project management office staff who mediate resource conflicts between project managers.
IT and change managers running multiple system or process projects in parallel.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Prioritising Across a Project Portfolio
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Building a Prioritisation Method
- Define weighted criteria, such as value, urgency and risk, for comparing projects fairly.
- Score a set of live projects against agreed criteria to produce a defensible priority order.
- Reconcile a prioritisation score with the political reality of a sponsor's seniority.
- Revisit project priority on a fixed schedule rather than only when a conflict forces the issue.
Session 2Handling Priority Conflicts and Trade-offs
- Identify when two projects are competing for the same constrained resource or deadline.
- Present a priority conflict to sponsors with options rather than an unexplained decision.
- Document a priority decision so it can be referred back to if it is challenged later.
- Recognise when a new urgent request is being used to bypass agreed prioritisation criteria.
02Managing Shared Resources Across Projects
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Building a Cross-Project Resource View
- Build a resource allocation view that shows every project drawing on a shared person or team.
- Identify overallocation before it becomes a missed deadline on more than one project.
- Model the effect of moving a resource from one project onto the schedule of both projects.
- Maintain a resource view that stays accurate as project plans change week to week.
Session 2Negotiating Resources with Other Project Managers
- Prepare a resource negotiation with data on impact rather than an appeal to urgency alone.
- Propose a resourcing compromise that protects the critical path of both competing projects.
- Escalate an unresolved resource conflict to a shared manager with a clear ask and options.
- Maintain a working relationship with peer project managers through repeated resource conflicts.
03Organising Personal Workload Across Projects
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Structuring a Multi-Project Personal System
- Build a single tracking system that consolidates actions and deadlines across every live project.
- Batch similar tasks across projects, such as status reporting, to reduce context-switching cost.
- Protect focused time for the highest-priority project against constant interruption from the rest.
- Rebuild a personal schedule quickly after an unplanned interruption without losing track of commitments.
Session 2Managing Attention and Avoiding Overload
- Recognise the early signs that a personal workload has exceeded what can be reliably delivered.
- Distinguish tasks that require deep attention from those that can be delegated or deferred.
- Set realistic response-time expectations with stakeholders across multiple concurrent projects.
- Review weekly which projects received attention and which were neglected, and adjust deliberately.
04Making Difficult Portfolio-Level Decisions
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Deciding When to Say No or Defer
- Assess a new project request against current capacity before committing to a delivery date.
- Propose deferring or descoping a new request rather than accepting it on top of a full load.
- Frame a declined request in terms of protecting delivery on existing commitments.
- Recognise when accepting every request is quietly guaranteeing failure on all of them.
Session 2Stopping, Pausing or Descoping Struggling Projects
- Compare struggling projects against each other to decide which should be paused or stopped.
- Build a case for pausing a project that a sponsor is reluctant to let go of.
- Descope a project deliberately to protect its most valuable elements under time pressure.
- Reallocate resources released from a paused project to the ones most likely to succeed.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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