. How does multitasking confuse the resource availability of project team personnel? An eastern U.S. financial services company found itself way behind schedule and over budget on an important strategic program. Both the budget and schedule baselines had begun slipping almost from the beginning, and as the project progressed, the lags became severe enough to require the company to call in expert help in the form of a project management consulting firm. After investigating the organization’s operations, the consulting firm determined that the primary source of problems both with this project in particular and the company’s project management practices in general was a serious failure to accurately forecast resource requirements. In the words of one of the consultants, “Not enough full-time

[human] resources had been dedicated to the program.”

The biggest problem was the fact that too many of the project team members were working on two or more projects simultaneously—a clear example of multitasking.

Unfortunately, the program’s leaders developed their ambitious schedule without reflecting on the availability of resources to support the project milestones.

With their excessive outside responsibilities, no one was willing to take direct ownership of their work on the program, people were juggling assignments, and everyone was getting farther behind in all the work. Again, in the words of the consultant, “Project issues would come up and there would be nobody there to handle them [in a timely fashion].” Those little issues, left unattended, eventually grew to become big problems. The schedule continued to lag, and employee morale began to bottom out.