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One Project Manager for Multiple Projects

Posted: Mon 10 Feb 2014 11:27 pm
by NickC
Hi All

It is possible that my organisation will soon allocate a single project manager to co-ordinate all projects. Currently we have several PM's who all have other technical roles.

The intention here is to ensure that each project is managed in a similar fashion. Currently the senior managers have picked up that there is too much variation between how different projects are run (reports, approvals, plans, resource management etc).

We may have 12 or so projects live at any one time. Most projects will be drawing from the same resource pool which is a key factor as to why it is thought that 1 PM may be a good idea, i.e. several PM's competing for the same resources could get messy.

Has anybody ever worked with this type of arrangement? I'm wondering whether 1 person can manage this number of projects effectively.

I feel I have the IT side of things covered with Excel and MS Project, but I am more worried that the devil is in the detail and that things might get missed with so much project work being run by 1 person simultaneously.

Any thoughts on this please?

To put this into context:

Around 12 projects running simultaneously
Each project lasts between 9 and 18 months
Each project has 3 delivery stages following start up / initiation
Each stage has around 9 work packages owned by various teams
Each work package has between 3 and 10 deliverables
Each team consists of between 2 to 4 staff who are used across all projects
All staff report to functional managers, and the PM will not out rank these managers

One last thought, is that the more there is to manage the less detailed I would expect the level of management to be. Does this make the role less of a project management role, and more of a programme management, or even a project co-ordinator role?

I am wondering what accountability the new role should take since it will not involve having anybody reporting under it, since the functional managers will still be in place.

Thanks

Nick