When several projects share one specialist, create one agreed order for that specialist’s ready work. Compare commitment dates, consequences, prerequisites and estimated effort. Name the leader who can settle conflicts across projects, and tell every affected owner which work will wait.
Make the competing commitments visible#
Collect each request, its project, required skill, ready date, estimate and next affected milestone. Include support incidents and routine work that also consume the specialist’s time. Do not plan against an empty calendar that does not exist.
Check readiness before assigning a slot. A reserved session that cannot proceed because inputs are missing can delay the next project too.
Use a clear priority decision#
- Identify fixed customer, contractual or operational commitments.
- Confirm which requests are complete enough to start.
- Assess the consequence of waiting for each ready request.
- Consider the effort and switching cost of the sequence.
- Agree the order and the conditions for changing it.
There is no universal formula that resolves every tradeoff. Record the reason for the chosen order so the next escalation can be evaluated against the same decision.
Worked example: migration, release and internal redesign#
In a hypothetical week, one architect is needed for a customer migration, a release review and an internal redesign. The migration has a fixed customer window and complete inputs. The release lacks a scope decision. The redesign has a flexible date.
Reserve the first slot for the migration, assign the missing release decision and defer the redesign. Tell the redesign owner the revised expectation. If an incident interrupts the plan, have the portfolio owner make the resulting tradeoff visible instead of leaving the specialist to negotiate privately.
Protect the sequence and check the result#
Keep the ready queue accessible to project owners. Use one escalation path for changes. At the next review, compare planned slots, actual interruptions, accepted outputs and the affected milestones.
If the specialist still cannot meet sustained ready demand, consider training another person or adding qualified capacity. Repeated reprioritization cannot create unlimited capacity.
Inspect shared demand in Commandix#
Commandix project and task records show owners and dependencies. Use workload and aging work with affected-work evidence to investigate the shared queue. The score helps identify what to inspect, while leadership remains responsible for the business priority order.
Related guide: Map shared bottlenecks across a project portfolio.
Frequently asked questions#
Should the specialist decide which project wins?#
They should inform the effort and readiness assessment. A leader with authority across the projects should own consequential priority tradeoffs.
Can we allocate equal time to every project?#
Equal allocation may create switching and delay the most urgent ready work. Compare the consequence and sequence before choosing a time split.