Hello Everyone,
I work for a large software company (~4,500 employees) and have spent the past few years building a PMO to manage our software projects effectively. Our portfolio includes a mix of large-scale ERP releases—requiring extensive project management due to their complexity (100+ stakeholders)—as well as smaller software projects with reduced scope, risk, and resource demands.
We’ve developed strong best practices throughout the software development lifecycle, including detailed checklists for each project phase, as well as robust standards for change management, risk management, and project reporting. At any given time, our team of 10 project managers oversees 50–80 active projects.
One of our ongoing challenges is ensuring that we provide the right level of project management support across this portfolio. A few years ago, we implemented a tiered project approach to standardize expectations—offering higher-touch project management for larger, more complex projects and a lighter-touch approach for lower-tiered projects. However, as leadership saw the value of comprehensive project management, expectations shifted, and over time, the tiered approach was deprioritized. As a result, our project managers became overextended, taking on more than originally planned.
We are now reevaluating our project tiers to ensure a sustainable workload while maintaining effective project oversight. Our goal is to establish scalable project management practices, templates, and SLAs that adjust to project complexity while preventing scope creep in our project managers’ responsibilities.
I’d love to hear from other PMOs—have you faced similar challenges, and how have you successfully balanced project oversight with resource constraints?
Looking forward to your insights!
