Managing Multiple AEM Projects Simultaneously: A Delivery Manager’s Guide

Handling multiple Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) projects at once can feel like juggling a hundred different balls—but with the right approach, it's completely doable! As a delivery manager, staying organized is key, but so is keeping your cool when everything seems to happen all at once.

Here are some of the biggest challenges we face and the solutions that can keep us on track, along with real-world examples of how these strategies can work:

Challenge 1: Balancing Competing Priorities

Solution: Prioritize and Communicate

Every project has its own urgency, and some stakeholders may feel like theirs should always come first. The key here is to prioritize based on business impact and be transparent with your team and stakeholders.

Example: Let’s say you're managing two AEM projects: one is a high-visibility content migration for a major client, while the other is a smaller enhancement for an internal team. The migration project clearly takes precedence due to its immediate revenue impact, but you still need to keep the smaller project moving. Set expectations with the internal team about the timeline and provide regular updates. You might say, “I know your feature is important, but I’ll be focusing on the client project this week. We’ll revisit your enhancement next Monday.”

Challenge 2: Keeping Track of Project Progress

Solution: Use Clear Tracking Tools

When managing multiple projects, it's easy for things to slip through the cracks. That’s why having a centralized tool like Miro or JIRA is crucial. Set up weekly check-ins, milestones, and visual boards so everyone can see what’s happening at a glance.

Example: You could create a Miro board where each project has its own swimlane with progress bars and due dates. I personally like color-coding each project based on its urgency—red for high-priority, yellow for medium, and green for ongoing tasks. This way, during weekly team check-ins, everyone can quickly grasp where each project stands and what’s next on the list.

Challenge 3: Ensuring Every Project Gets Attention

Solution: Delegate and Automate

You can't be everywhere at once, but you can make sure everything runs smoothly. Delegate where you can—whether that’s assigning a senior team member to oversee smaller tasks or automating repetitive ones.

Example: In one of my projects, we had to repeatedly upload assets into AEM’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) system for different teams. Instead of doing it manually, we created an automated workflow in AEM that tagged and categorized the assets based on predetermined rules. This freed up hours of manual work each week, allowing me to focus on high-priority tasks.

Challenge 4: Managing Stakeholder Expectations

Solution: Set Clear Boundaries

With multiple projects in flight, it’s easy to get pulled in too many directions. By setting realistic timelines and communicating frequently, you can manage expectations before they become an issue.

Example: During one particularly hectic quarter, I had three different teams requesting AEM integrations. Each had a different deadline, and there was simply no way to meet all of them. I had a meeting with each stakeholder to walk them through the current workload and explain why one project had to come before the others. By showing them the roadmap and being open about the challenges, I was able to adjust deadlines to something everyone was comfortable with.

Final Thoughts: Stay Flexible

Flexibility is your best friend. No matter how perfectly you’ve planned, things will shift. Be prepared to pivot when needed, and trust in your systems and team.

Example: I had a situation where a last-minute security patch needed to be deployed across multiple AEM instances. This wasn’t planned, but the flexibility in our workflow allowed us to quickly reprioritize. We shifted non-critical tasks to the following week and managed to implement the patch without impacting other projects too much.

Balancing priorities and keeping multiple AEM projects moving forward is no easy feat, but with the right strategies in place—communication, tracking, and delegation—it’s definitely manageable!