In many companies, engineers often support multiple developmentprojects at the same time, with the belief that this will speed up timeto market. This paper examines this perception, and seeks to identifythe pros and cons of multi-project support in product development.Typical situations and factors of influence on product development cycletime are examined, with a focus on productivity issues. From a workflowand utilization perspective, the effects of multi-project tasking arethen analyzed, using both analytical approaches and data observations.The results are used to evaluate the typical impact on a projectschedule. The information provides insight into ways to increase theeffective utilization of resources, situations where multi-projectsupport can be beneficial, as well as situations where the effects ofconcurrent multi-project support are detrimental to time to market.Finally, an overview of methods to minimize the detrimental effects isprovided
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