...
This is a question I have seen repeatedly across organizations, and over time I have come to believe that resource conflicts are rarely resource problems.
More often, they are symptoms of a deeper alignment problem between strategy, portfolio commitments, and organizational capacity.
When multiple Project Managers and Delivery Managers compete for the same resources, the immediate discussion tends to focus on who gets the resource.
However, the more important question is: who has the authority and criteria to make trade-off decisions when demand exceeds capacity?
In my experience, the most effective organizations address this through portfolio-level governance rather than project-level negotiation.
Key elements typically include:
• A transparent view of demand versus available capacity.
• Explicit prioritization criteria linked to strategic objectives and expected value.
• Clear decision rights for resource allocation and escalation.
• Regular portfolio reviews to reassess priorities as business conditions evolve.
One lesson I learned is that resource conflicts often reveal hidden assumptions.
Many organizations approve projects as if capacity were unlimited, only to discover later that commitments exceed what the system can realistically absorb.
In those situations, escalation should not be viewed as a failure of collaboration.
It is a governance mechanism that forces explicit decisions about priorities, value, risk, and timing.
Ultimately, successful organizations do not eliminate resource conflicts.
They create transparent and coherent ways to navigate them.
The real challenge is not deciding who gets the resource.
It is preserving organizational coherence when demand exceeds capacity.
Community Champion
