How many projects can be managed by a project manager?

Question

Startups

Actually a couple of questions to the habra community:

- how many projects does PM usually manage in your company?
- what is the maximum number of simultaneous projects in your opinion is optimal for the manager to remain in focus and be able to manage effectively?

Answer 1

From zero to infinity, depending on the details.
We have specifically 3, and who exactly is engaged in the PRODUCT, and who is in the PROJECT, is implemented in different proportions on different projects.
Personally, as a remote producer, I managed 15 projects at my last job, but there the degree of involvement was much lower - signing, discussing plans, accepting stages, and quite a bit of turnover.

Answer 2

From my own experience, keeping more than two projects constantly (and fully) in focus becomes difficult. But much more depends on the specifics, scale, etc. At the moment, for example, my team (4 developers + Product Owner) has 3 projects in progress, but we are actually working on the third one in our free time and occasionally (preparing for defrosting).

Answer 3

In practice, it was under 60.

Answer 4

If we are talking about any effective work, then 2-3.

Answer 5

As much as he pulls without much strain +).

Answer 6

one team leader - one project.

Answer 7

One manager - 50% of the working day.
More than 50% few normal people can work. Anyway, smoke breaks, pauses, solitaire games, news, social networks, I was 15 minutes late from lunch.
So the burden of the hassle of projects - in a different way, and assistants to the manager would be assigned. Others can lead an armful and not feel worn out.
How to evaluate the hassle? Well, somehow create a metric. For example, the cost of a project multiplied by the number of people involved. I understand that the figure is from the ceiling. Maybe the formula will look different.
But, on the one hand, he will monitor all those involved, on the other hand, it will become a little expensive to fund an expensive project.

Answer 8

At most I tried to develop 8 non-standard (but not very complex) sites. I think I would pull 11 such sites. Here you just need to properly allocate your time, and no rides to customers - this should be done by the account manager.
If the project is quite complex and large-scale, which can be divided into more than 30 tasks / subtasks, and each step has to be coordinated and tested, then reports are written based on the test results, then there are a maximum of 2 projects.

Answer 9

One is better, but two are possible - this is if the projects are really worth the attention of the PM, and you need to look not at formal signs, but with whom and what the PM works with. For example, I had about 20 small projects, but the Customer was essentially one, albeit in the form of regional branches, plus various contracts with him, such as support - I consider all this to be one.
It's all about context. You can normally work with one or two contexts by switching. But more is already fraught with loss of control.

Answer 10

The methodology recommends one project at a time, but in practice this is almost never the case and a manager can effectively handle two projects at the same time.