You have booked the installation crew for Monday. Your equipment is ready, the client is expecting you, and everything appears to be organised.
Then you find out that the crew is still working on another project. That project is running two weeks late. Its project manager knew about the delay last week, but nobody thought to tell you.
Now you have a problem too.
How often do problems on one project become problems on another because the right people didn’t talk to each other?
Problem: Project Managers Don’t Know What Is Happening on Other Projects
Projects compete for the same resources
Most companies have several projects running at once. Each project manager has a schedule, budget and client to look after, but many rely on the same people, equipment and suppliers.
Your design engineer may also be supporting three other projects. The fabrication workshop may have more work promised than it can complete. Your commissioning specialist may be booked by two project managers for the same week.
Individually, each project schedule might look achievable. Put them together and the company may have promised more than it can deliver.
The problem becomes worse when the tender team continues offering completion dates based on resources that are already committed. Winning another project is good, but someone still has to do the work.
Important information stays within individual projects
A purchasing manager discovers that a supplier’s delivery time has increased. A project manager learns that cranes need to be booked much further ahead. Another team finds a quality problem with equipment that several projects have ordered.
These are things other project managers need to know. If the information remains within one project, everyone else may discover the same problem separately, usually after making commitments based on information that is no longer correct.
Emails can help, but an important warning can easily disappear among all the other messages. Sending an email also doesn’t confirm that anyone has understood the effect on their project.
The review meeting becomes something people avoid
Some companies try to solve this with a regular meeting, but then spend an hour having every manager read out their project status.
People wait for their turn, give their report and stop listening. A technical discussion between two attendees takes another twenty minutes. The meeting runs late, and the resource conflict nobody wanted to raise is never discussed.
I have known project managers who avoid weekly company review meetings because they consider them a waste of time. Missing the meeting can mean missing useful information, but the organiser also needs to make the meeting worth attending.
Solution: Hold Regular Meetings to Coordinate Projects
Make the purpose clear
Your company should hold regular projects review meetings so that managers understand what is happening across the business and how it affects their work.
This is a meeting between the people responsible for delivering and supporting different projects. Its purpose is to coordinate resources, explain changes and agree what needs to happen next.
A detailed review of one project, a client progress meeting and a formal approval meeting each have their own purpose. Keep those separate where practical, so this meeting has enough time for matters affecting several projects.
Write the purpose, reporting expectations and meeting arrangements into your company procedures. Where relevant, link to these from each project management plan, so a new project manager knows what is expected.
Include the people who can explain and resolve conflicts
Depending on the company, the regular attendees should include project managers and the managers responsible for design, production, installation, purchasing and tenders. Include the program manager, department manager or project director who can confirm priorities.
The tender manager is particularly important. They need to understand current workload before promising delivery dates for future projects. They should also explain likely upcoming work, including when an award is expected and which resources it may need. Make clear which work is confirmed and which is still a possibility.
Invite specialists when their input is needed. You don’t need every team member at every meeting. Someone should be able to represent each relevant function and take agreed actions back to their team.
If nobody present can decide between competing priorities, identify who can and how quickly a decision is needed.
Use a regular time and keep the meeting short
A weekly meeting may suit a busy company where resource needs change quickly. A fortnightly meeting may be enough where work is more stable. Choose a frequency that gives people time to act before problems affect delivery.
Book meetings ahead, provide an agenda and keep the start and finish times reliable. People are more likely to attend when they know the meeting will start and finish when promised.
For a small group, try thirty to forty-five minutes, with a maximum of two or three minutes for each manager’s initial update. Allow separate time for shared decisions. Adjust the format if the number of projects makes that unrealistic.
My post on reducing the cost of project meetings explains why it helps to make the cost of everyone’s time visible. Ten managers spending an unnecessary extra half hour in a meeting means five hours of management time lost.
Prepare a consistent short update
Use the same simple format for each project. Managers should update it before the meeting, using current schedules, forecasts and resource plans.
The information should include:
- Project name and responsible manager.
- Realistic forecast completion date and significant changes to milestones.
- Forecast budget overrun or saving, with a brief explanation.
- Resources needed or becoming available, including dates and quantities.
- Issues or lessons that may affect other projects.
- Decisions or assistance required, including when a response is needed.
Show what has changed since the previous review. Where the company already has this information in its project systems, use it directly. Don’t make every project manager create another spreadsheet or presentation containing the same figures.
See Go to Meetings Prepared for more on having the required information ready. The meeting should not become a search for figures that could have been checked beforehand.
Report realistic dates and explain the consequences
Give the current forecast completion date, even when it is later than the approved schedule or the date everyone hoped to achieve. Keep the agreed date visible so people can see the difference.
Then explain what the change means for others. Saying “we are two weeks behind” is less useful than explaining that the installation crew will remain on your project until 18 November, affecting its planned start on another project.
Include uncertainty. If an equipment delivery date is unconfirmed, say so and explain when you expect confirmation. Other managers can then plan around the risk instead of treating an uncertain date as a commitment.
Also report earlier completion. A crew becoming available sooner may help another project recover a delay, provided the remaining work and handover requirements have been allowed for.
Discuss resource needs and releases together
Be specific about resources. “We need engineering help soon” doesn’t give anyone enough information to plan.
Explain the discipline or skill required, how much time is needed, the start date and likely duration. For equipment, identify the type, capacity and booking period. Include constraints such as site access, inductions or specialist qualifications where they affect availability.
Report resources becoming available with the same detail. A person finishing their main task may still have testing, documentation or support work to complete. Confirm the amount of time actually available before allocating them elsewhere.
Use a shared resource schedule during the discussion and update it when commitments change. Check leave and other commitments too. I find that resource management is often a big challenge in most companies, as noted in the article “Portfolio Resource Management” at the PMI, so if your company has a good system for tracking resource use, make sure to use it.
Agree priorities when projects need the same people
If two projects need the same specialist at the same time, the company needs to decide which work takes priority.
That decision should consider the consequences for the whole business, including client commitments, safety, critical milestones, contractual exposure and the effect of delaying other work. It should also consider whether work can be resequenced or suitable external help obtained.
The manager with the authority to set priorities should make the decision clear. Record who gets the resource, for what period, and what happens to the other project. Explain any follow-up needed with the affected clients or teams.
Project managers should also report spare capacity honestly. Keeping people reserved for work that is no longer ready can leave another project struggling while those people wait.
Raise financial changes that need wider action
The meeting should cover significant forecast overruns and savings, particularly where management support, funding decisions or changes in workload are required.
Report the expected final cost against the approved budget. The amount spent so far can be misleading if major invoices, commitments or remaining work have not been included in the forecast.
For projects funded annually, explain when a lower forecast spend means work has moved into the next financial year. That money may still be needed later. It is different from completing the same scope for less money.
Where funds really are available for release, follow the required approval process. As discussed in Make Project Budgets Easy to Release, the company should make that process straightforward. Mentioning a saving in the meeting does not itself transfer the budget.
Share problems that other projects can avoid
Use the meeting to highlight issues with wider consequences. These might include increased steel prices, longer equipment lead times, crane availability, supplier performance or a recurring quality problem.
Explain who may be affected and what they should check. For example, if a supplier has extended delivery times, the purchasing manager could check outstanding orders and identify projects needing revised dates or alternatives.
Share useful lessons while other teams can still act on them. A simple warning about an inspection requirement or missing supplier document may prevent several projects making the same mistake.
Keep the discussions practical and factual. If a detailed investigation is required, allocate it to the appropriate people rather than trying to complete it with every manager watching.
Keep detailed discussions under control
The chair should bring each discussion back to its effect on other projects, the decision required and the next action.
If two people need to spend twenty minutes discussing a technical issue, arrange a separate discussion. Record who will organise it and when the outcome is required. Moving it out of this meeting should still result in someone doing the work.
Written updates are useful for routine information. Atlassian’s guide to weekly team updates gives an example of sharing updates without requiring everyone to meet. Use the live review for questions, conflicts and decisions that benefit from discussion (I prefer the written way of doing it rather than lots of short videos).
Don’t rely on circulating emails alone when several managers need to agree how a change affects their commitments.
Keep useful minutes and follow up actions
Keep a concise record of decisions, resource commitments, changed dates and actions. Give each action an owner and a specific due date. “Check crane availability by 3 pm Thursday” is much clearer than “purchasing to investigate”.
At the next review, check the actions that are due or overdue. If something is blocked, identify the reason and the help required. Repeatedly carrying an unchanged action forward achieves very little.
Update the current action list and close completed items. Archive previous minutes so the history remains available; don’t delete earlier decisions simply to make the current list shorter.
My post on maintaining a project communication, decision and action register explains how important records can be kept easy to find. Link relevant decisions to the affected project records and update the working schedules and forecasts as well.
Keep absent managers involved and check the meeting works
If a manager cannot attend, ask for their brief update beforehand and, where appropriate, a delegate who can answer questions. The chair can highlight anything affecting others without reading the entire report aloud.
Send decisions and actions promptly to absent managers. If their agreement is still required, record that clearly instead of assuming silence means acceptance.
Never wait for the next regular meeting to raise an urgent conflict. Contact the affected managers as soon as you know, then include the outcome in the review records.
Periodically ask whether the meeting is helping people plan. Are resource clashes being identified earlier? Are actions completed? Do managers leave knowing what has changed and what they need to do? If attendance is falling, find out why and improve the format.
Lesson: Make Project Review Meetings Worth Attending
Regular projects review meetings should help managers understand what is happening across the company and how other projects may affect their own.
Keep the updates brief and focus on realistic completion dates, significant financial changes, shared problems and resources needed or becoming available. Include the people who can explain upcoming work and decide priorities.
Prepare beforehand, keep to the agreed times and record clear actions. Follow through by updating the plans people actually use.
A useful review meeting gives managers information and decisions they need to deliver their projects. That is a good reason to attend the next one.
