Navigating the Chaos: Lessons from a Decade in Project Management Across Diverse Departments

Hello, I'm Nicholas Drage, founder of Drage Consulting, a specialized project and program management consultancy focused on helping businesses execute large-scale initiatives without the burden of building an internal PMO. With over 10 years of experience leading transformative initiatives in fintech, media, and beyond, I've seen firsthand the highs and lows of getting projects across the finish line. In this post, I'll share the common challenges I've encountered, the pitfalls of traditional consultancies, and how my experiences have shaped an ethical, efficient approach to project delivery across departments like HR, Sales, Operations, Marketing, Card Payments, Issuing, Legal, Onboarding, Digital, Product, Call Centre, and Engineering.

The Universal Challenges of Cross-Departmental Projects

Project management isn't just about timelines and budgets—it's about wrangling diverse teams, navigating ambiguity, and delivering real value in a fast-paced world. One of the biggest hurdles I've faced is the siloed nature of departments. Projects with a dedicated team—say, confined to a single department like Engineering or Marketing—are relatively straightforward to implement. They benefit from focused resources, clear ownership, and aligned priorities, making execution efficient and outcomes predictable.

However, the real difficulties arise when projects span across over 10 departments, as they often do in large-scale product launches or enterprise-wide transformations. For instance, launching a new payment product might touch Sales, Marketing, Legal, and Operations, while a company-wide operational overhaul could involve HR, Onboarding, Digital, Product, and Finance. These multi-department initiatives create complexity: mismatched goals lead to resistance, like Sales teams prioritizing revenue while Engineering focuses on technical stability. Communication breakdowns escalate, dependencies go unmanaged, and ambiguity thrives.

Worse, these sprawling projects frequently lack a dedicated budget or a robust plan to track long-term costs. Without visibility into ongoing expenses—such as training, maintenance, or iterative changes—the program can quietly drain resources, ballooning costs over time and eroding ROI. I've seen businesses underestimate these hidden burdens, turning what starts as a "simple" launch into a multi-year financial sinkhole.

The Shortcomings of Traditional Consultancies

Traditional consultancies often promise the world but deliver disappointment. Their one-size-fits-all models—rigid frameworks and high overheads—can feel impersonal and inefficient. They excel in dedicated-team scenarios but falter on multi-department spans, deploying oversized teams that inflate costs without addressing silos or long-term budgeting gaps. Ethical lapses are common: overbilling for unnecessary resources or pushing proprietary tools that lock clients in, rather than fostering sustainable, cross-functional solutions.

They also struggle with agility across departments. A consultancy geared toward Engineering might overlook HR's change management needs, leading to low adoption rates in onboarding systems or product launches. Moreover, ethical considerations are often sidelined—rushing timelines can compromise data privacy in Legal or Card Payments projects, or ignore employee well-being in Call Centre transformations. These issues erode trust and leave clients with fragmented results.

Lessons Learned: Ethical Efficiency in Action

My career has taught me that true success lies in ethical, tailored efficiency. Projects with dedicated teams are easy because of their contained scope, but spanning 10+ departments demands a nuanced approach: proactive silo-breaking through stakeholder mapping, Agile adaptability to handle ambiguity, and rigorous governance to track dependencies.

Efficiency starts with upfront planning—establishing clear budgets and cost-tracking mechanisms from day one, including forecasts for ongoing impacts like training or integrations. Ethically, this means transparency: avoiding overcommitment, prioritizing data security in Issuing or Legal contexts, and ensuring inclusive change management that respects team well-being across Operations and Call Centre.

I've learned to influence without authority, fostering consensus through data-driven insights and ethical persuasion. This builds trust, reduces resistance, and ensures measurable outcomes, even in budget-constrained environments.

Why Drage Consulting is Different

At Drage Consulting, we cut through the noise by offering flexible, ethical PMO-as-a-service. Whether it's large-scale product launches in Sales and Marketing, or transformations spanning HR, Operations, and Engineering, we bridge gaps with hands-on leadership, Agile efficiency, and a commitment to ethical delivery. No bloated teams—just proven expertise driving on-time, cost-tracked results, especially for those sprawling, multi-department challenges.

If you're facing implementation hurdles, let's chat. Together, we can turn challenges into triumphs.

Nicholas Drage is the founder of Drage Consulting, with a passion for ethical project management in fintech and beyond.