Tips for Leading Multiple Projects

Sometimes, I feel like I need Hermione's Time Turner. Here are some tips I've collected from facing the challenge of managing a chaotic calendar and a constant barrage of pings. (That is my actual calendar in the photo!)

1. Delegate. And TRUST that others can handle tasks on their own. I totally overwhelmed myself when I first became a team lead because I was used to "being in the weeds" of the work. Being the most senior team member on the project, I knew the "how" to get things  done, and, in busy moments, it seemed so much easier to do things myself than to explain it. I very quickly became a bottleneck for progress, because way too many things needed to pass through me, and I was getting behind. I needed to give my team the knowledge and support to empower them to do things on their own. Completely leaving something that I knew I would have to answer for in the hands of someone else was not easy at first. But I also truly believed that my team was competent and hard working. They could do it, and I learned that it was now my job to set the team up for success. 

2. Establish a point person for different tracks of work. For me, this was not a formal assignment, just an observation that certain people on my team had specific knowledge on certain areas from being close to that particular work. Empowering team members to own their work, created mini "SMEs" within our team that each knew specific things in depth. If I had a question about X, my first thought was to go to my teammate Jim. And if there was a working session on X, I would ask Jim to attend to represent our team so that I could work on something else. 

3. Be mindful of the "I'll get back to you on thats." I caught myself saying that phrase quite a lot. I would be asked questions in meetings and I sincerely had no idea how to answer them, so that was the only thing I could say. But let's say I took away five different questions during meetings throughout the day. I didn't realize how long it takes to actually solve them. Sometimes high-level questions are actually complex to answer.  For example, if I am asked in a meeting when interface X will be ready to be tested, there are a lot of pieces to dig into. To be ready for "point to point" integration testing, we need our test scenarios written and reviewed. That's the easy part, that is my own team. But we also need to make sure both systems are ready to receive/send data, and that all the jobs in between (often way more than you might think) are fully developed, unit tested, and scheduled. That's a lot of coordination to figure out and to come to a single date for. That single question might spiral into messages, meetings, follow ups, etc. And that is just one of the five! 

4. Block time to get your "heads down" work done. Related to the point above, you need to have time to work on things that you need to do. Multitasking during a meeting sometimes is necessary, but it will never allow you to get to the level of focus that is needed to solve complex problems. I learned that I needed to set boundaries in my day to get my work done, otherwise it keeps piling up and I've spend my whole day in calls and at the end of the day realize I have hours of focus work to complete. 

5. When you have four meetings at the same time, attend none of them. Just kidding. Do your best at what you can. Attend the most important call and be engaged with it.  You don't have a time turner and you never will. You can stretch yourself, but you have limits.

6. Organize and improve processes. It takes time, but it creates long term gain.  If there is confusion in a process, you will waste so much time hashing it out, and then revisiting the same questions two weeks later. Spend heads down time on clearly establishing and documenting processes and get buy in from the team. Then, when questions come up, everyone is on the same page about how to do what need to be done. 

7. Be honest when you are feeling overwhelmed. A good team is there for each other, you don't have to feel like you are on your own. Ask for help from your team. Ask for support from management. And be realistic about what you agree to take on.