Organizing to avoid project overload: The use and risks of narrowing strategies in multi-project practice

• Project managers and project members avoid project overload by changing work routines.
• Multi-project work is organized in day-to-day practice by using narrowing strategies.
• Examples of narrowing strategies are support-phone, time-slots and task-lists.
• Narrowing strategies run the risk of excluding the much needed historical and organizational context.

While project work can be motivating, stimulating and creative, it can also be frustrating, ambiguous and stressful. Situations of project overload, i.e. situations in which fragmentation, disturbances and disruptions are reoccurring, are common in project-based organizations running many parallel projects. This paper reports findings from an extensive interview study on how project managers and project members working in parallel projects handle project overload by changing their work routines. The results show 1) that project work in practice is organized by using narrowing strategies and 2) that narrowing strategies run the risk of excluding the vital historical and organizational context. The findings have implications for project theory and project practice.