Multitasking and learning to delegate effectively are the nature of the beast for a showrunner. Having to do that times three should only sharpen those skills, Plec predicts.
Ilene Chaiken went from zero to 60 as a showrunner on her first TV project as a writer, Showtime's "The L Word." She'd worked as a screenwriter and as an executive in TV, but never had a staff job on a TV series until she was calling the shots.
"After more than 10 years as an executive, I had the managerial skills you need to be a showrunner," she says.
That's exactly what happened with the ABC Family drama "Kyle XY." From there, she was off and running --and counts her background as an assistant and an exec as key building blocks to her success as a showrunner.