Reports show that 85% of project managers lead four to eight projects at once. Well, it seems like the norm in the IT industry, you may not realize that leading multiple projects has several hidden problems. And without addressing these problems, your career becomes repeatetive and stagnant. You see it's a common belief that leading multiple projects provides the required experience to lead big and complex project as a senior project manager. It's just a matter of years of experience. In reality, you literally get stuck in the same place for many years. And the fact is you don't even develop because you become a forever Scrum master, an expert at running small unimportant projects. Just think about it. You do the same small projects using the same simplified project management approach like Scrum or Kanban. And as a result, many IT project managers never even get exposed to the full project life cycle. That's why becoming a senior project manager is not only about career advancement and salary. It's all about getting the career you actually dreamed of because leading one big project is more fulfilling than juggling multiple smaller projects. That's because you can apply the best project management practices that you learned so hard from the theory. And at the same time, you don't sit in back-to-back meetings every day. And overall, your actions create a bigger impact. So let me illustrate what happens and hopefully it will encourage you to take control of your career as soon as possible. Let's imagine you already lead four projects and that's the point where many project managers report they feel stagnant in their career. So why does it happen? That's because all happens behind the scenes for you. Imagine your company needs to start two new projects. One of them is small and the second one is large and complex. So what option is easier for your boss? A, transfer your four projects to other PMs and give you the big one. Or B, give you the additional small project. Obviously it's option B, but in the real world, you probably encountered the option C as well. For example, your boss temporarily assigns you to the big project and then quickly hires an experienced PM and puts you back running your old projects. I know this because I've been hiring all those senior project managers to take on our new important projects all the time. This is actually the way you become the most experienced PM to lead the least important projects in bulk. That is also the reason why staying in one organization for many years is dangerous for your career. You may never break free of the burden of your old projects. Moreover, the longer the project runs, the less important it becomes for the organization. And in the long run, the only good solution for you is to change the job with a promotion to a senior project manager. Again, if you want a fulfilling career where people recognize your contribution, you must become one of the 15% of project managers who lead one complex project at a time. Okay, here's a quick announcement before we proceed. Throughout the week of July 8th, I'll be sharing the most efficient strategies for becoming a senior IT project manager. However, I'll email it only to my newsletter subscribers. If you are an ambitious project manager and you want to move to a senior level role, use the link in the description and join thousands of like-minded PMs who will start implementing those strategies this summer. Okay, let's move on to the next critical problem of leading multiple projects. And most project managers don't understand this for some reason. And it's the root cause of why so many feel overwhelmed when managing multiple projects. You begin your career leading one project. Imagine it's like your boss handling you a bowling ball. Then you get another project. You replicate what you did in the first one. Now you carry two bowling balls. Later you get the third and the fourth project. But again, you simply repeat what you did in previous projects, maybe with some improvements. Practically it's still possible, but you must carry four heavy bowling balls. At this point, you start feeling the workload. So you invest in developing your time management skills and productivity tools, AKA your administrative muscle. But that can get you only that far. When you get your next project, the fifth bowling ball, things start falling apart. Why? You simply run out of working hours. So you either start working more hours, cutting corners, or simply failing commitments. As a result, you drop one or two bowling balls. Again, the most common case is when you work with Scram or Kanban. At some point you have five daily meetings, five spring planning meetings, and five retros. The skills you use to lead a small project are not scalable. You can only repeat the same processes and meetings for each new project. But instead you should have built a leadership hierarchy. This will allow you to hand over the bowling balls to your project management team, leaving your hands free to lead these sub teams in the right direction. I also want you to be aware of the common misconception. And if you think like, I need more experience before I can get to a senior project manager role, well, you are right. But it's not about the experience of leading small projects over and over again. You need experience acting like a senior project manager while you lead your small projects. This leads us directly to the final and the most critical problem. Because many freshly promoted senior project managers fail their first big project. Why? Again, the skills they use to lead small projects didn't work on the big one. Running four or eight small project is not the same as running one big project, even if the total head count is the same. For example, they used to have daily access to product owners. They provided requirements and clarifications during sprint plannings and daily meetings. But on a big project, your product owner, for example, is an executive. And you see him once a week on a short progress meeting. Nevertheless, this executive expects that you identify all the requirements based on his one paragraph description of the business need. So you must organize the work with other stakeholders who are not part of your project. And those stakeholders are suddenly department directors. How do you even get all of them on a sprint planning meeting? Moreover, your executive doesn't care about your problems. He expects you to find a solution. And frankly speaking, they don't even care about the project's progress. They always ask whether you are on track to reaching the project's goals. So let me ask you this. How many times have you thought, once I become a senior PM, I'll start creating project charter or any other document. Once I become a senior PM, I'll start delegating and focusing on strategy. Once I become a senior PM, I will write a new resume to select projects and companies I like to work with. But here's the truth. Everyone expects that you start acting like a senior project manager before you become one. That's exactly because the skills you gained and developed at the start of your career are not sufficient to manage bigger projects. You need to develop those skills while you still run small projects. And let me tell you one more secret. The lack of these senior level project management skills is obvious in your resume. It's in the way you communicate your experience. Senior project managers generate additional value while leading a project. That's why a senior PM doesn't break about seven plus years of fulfilling typical responsibilities. Instead, they display the additional values they bring to an organization. And it speaks volume about their knowledge and skills. Now that you know about all these problems, the question is, what should you do about them? So if you are an ambitious project manager and you plan to become a senior PM one day, join my newsletter right now and learn the most efficient strategies. See you there.