Think working on five projects at once will make great results appear like magic? Don't be so sure. The price your team pays by switching from one project to another could make your productivity disappear. Johanna Rothman reveals the smoke and mirrors behind the illusion of multiprojecting.

"We want the software to be faster, better, cheaper!" the marketing guy declares. We want to deliver, but if we aren't positive what those adjectives mean, we will fail. Read on to learn how a road trip prompted industry veteran Esther Derby to revisit how to avoid the expectations gap.

Have you ever found yourself stuck in a situation where, no matter what you do, you can't seem to please your senior manager? Your manager wants you to decrease test time, but at what price? You go back and forth, but no matter how much you compress the schedule, it's never enough. Johanna Rothman explains how to avoid the bring-me-a-rock trap, when enough is not enough, and keep your team from being sucked into unreasonable time constraints.

Spending additional money on resources to ease the strain of a tight schedule seems like a good idea. What project manager wouldn't want more help with a project? This week, Peter Clark explains the pluses and the pitfalls of trading gold for days.