Project management complexities

Develop the project management skills you need to handle complexity in engineering, infrastructure and other large projects. Underestimating project complexity is widely accepted as one of the major causes of project failure. As with most external factors, many of the causes and consequences of complexity are difficult to avoid or control. When dealing with complexity, standard practices in the field of project management often overlook the inherent uncertainties linked to the length and scale of engineering and infrastructure projects and their constantly changing environments.

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• Episode 147 – Managing Complexity – The Complex Project Toolkit
• 11.4 Project Risk and the Project Complexity Profile
• Project Management: Mastering Complexity
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• The Complexity of Decision-Making in Large Projects with Multiple Partners: Be Prepared to Change
• Complexity and Project Management: A General Overview
• Project Complexity Influence on Project management performance – The Malaysian perspective
• Revisiting project complexity: a new dimension and framework
• Project Management from Simple to Complex
• The management of complex projects

Episode 147 – Managing Complexity – The Complex Project Toolkit

So what is complexity in projects? What are the sources of project complexity, the levels and also the implications of project complexity? What complexity factors are critical in projects? Can regular project management tools and techniques be used for complex projects? This presentation will answer these questions. This presentation is based on several case studies in complexity. These case studies have rarely been associated with complexity and projects and this is what makes this presentation so unique.

Through these case studies the presentation highlights the importance of complexity and why it needs to be considered in projects. The presentation follows the evolution of Roman projects to better understand how they became more complex with time, facing more challenging and difficult problems, sometimes close to insurmountable.

For example, the iconic Roman Colosseum megaproject had no precedence and technical complexity arose from unknown and untried solutions, whilst organizational complexity arose from the myriad of stakeholders and organizations that had to be engaged during the project. In this presentation you will examine not only the project complexity spectrum but how your ability to understand complexity in projects could be the difference between project success and failure.

Through the case studies you will see the importance of complexity and how it varies in projects. From simple projects with repeating patterns, consistent events, knowns, and clear cause and effect relationship to edge-of-chaos projects with high turbulence, ambiguity and uncertainty, interdependency, and non-linearity.

New insights emerge when dissecting historical projects through a project management lens, and brought to life in this analysis. You will walk away with new insights and curiosity to re-examine these project more closely for lessons. Date: Thursday, April 26, , pm. Lesson Learned from the Ancient Romans pm - Formal and free-flow networking. As the author behind the series, Mark Kozak-Holland brings years of experience as a consultant who helps Fortune companies formulate projects that leverage emerging technologies.

Since he has been straddling the business and IT worlds making these projects happen. He is a PMP, certified business consultant, the author of several books, and a noted speaker. Mark has always been interested in tracing the evolution of technology and the 3 industrial revolutions of the last years. Whilst recovering a failed Financial Services project he first used the Titanic analogy to explain to project executives why the project had failed.

As a historian, Kozak-Holland seeks out the wisdom of the past to help others avoid repeating mistakes and to capture time-proven techniques. His lectures on the Titanic project have been very popular at gatherings of project managers and CIOs.

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11.4 Project Risk and the Project Complexity Profile

There's also live online events, interactive content, certification prep materials, and more. The four-quadrant project landscape Figure is used first to categorize the project to a quadrant, and within that quadrant to select a best-fit PMLC model. But even having made that categorization and selected a best-fit PMLC model based on goal and solution clarity, you are not quite finished. Contemporary projects have become more uncertain, and along with this increased uncertainty is increased complexity. Uncertainty is the result of changing market conditions that require high-speed and high-change responses to produce a solution in order to be competitive.

Project Management: Mastering Complexity

Skip to Main Content. A not-for-profit organization, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Use of this web site signifies your agreement to the terms and conditions. IS Project Management: Size, Complexity, Practices and the Project Management Office Abstract: The current research is an exploratory investigation into current IS project management practices related to projects of varying size and complexity across diverse industries Survey data on a broad range of project management issues was collected from IS project managers. The relationships between project size and complexity with 13 project management practices and 3 project performance measures were analyzed. In addition, the influence of a PMO on the use of standardized project management practices and project performance was empirically tested. Our findings suggest that IS project size influences budget and project quality, while project complexity influences the use of specific project management practices.

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Numerous studies have attempted to explain project complexity by exploring the various approaches adopted by researchers [ 1 , 2 ]. Evidently, much of the research produced to date by the construction community has failed to consider the application of lean construction as a way to improve project performance by managing project complexity, ensuring the successful delivery of construction projects. Research undertaken by Smith et al [ 7 ] and Bhasin [ 8 ] supported this view, noting that the application of lean is what needs to happen for successful project delivery. In recent years, an increasing amount of research has been undertaken in relation to the subject of project complexity [ 3 ]. When evaluating the issue of project complexity, researchers predominately focused on the core platforms of simple project complexity classification and complex systems theory [ 9 ].

The Complexity of Decision-Making in Large Projects with Multiple Partners: Be Prepared to Change

The chart will assist in sizing the complexity of your IT project. Sizing the complexity of your project will assist towards determining your checklist of project deliverables. How likely is it that the project will meet expectations and objectives without close risk monitoring and mitigations? How costly is the project in terms of expenses AND average salary of FTEs required to meet project expectations and objectives? Very likely: Risks are low impact, low likelihood with no required identification of mitigations. Somewhat Likely: Risks are low-medium impact with low-medium likelihood.

Complexity and Project Management: A General Overview

It is widely accepted that new management methods are needed to curb the frequent delays and cost overruns observed in engineering and construction projects. New approaches, such as the Last Planner system of production control and advanced construction packages, can help to increase construction efficiencies; however, none of them address the root causes of problems, which is the difficulty of managing the inherent complexities of large engineering and construction projects. Numerous surveys conducted in recent years have shown that conventional management methodologies are incapable of avoiding schedule and cost overruns in engineering and construction projects. For some time, it was thought that tools such as 3D computer-aided design and building information modeling would solve the problem; however, while they have contributed to substantial improvements in safety and technical quality, their impact on cost and schedule has not been very significant. The first attempt to abandon the traditional project management approach was made by Glenn Ballard and Gregory Howell in the s when they developed the Last Planner methodology. In essence, they applied lean management concepts developed by Toyota. While the Last Planner methodology is widely used by building and civil works contractors, it has had little success on oil and gas projects.

Project Complexity Influence on Project management performance – The Malaysian perspective

All large projects can be considered complex. They have the characteristics identified by Williams as sources of complexity, i. The sources of uncertainty include the technology, the political and social environment and the market, with many interactive effects among them. The types of projects discussed here have additional characteristics that further increase their complexity and the difficulty of managing them.

Revisiting project complexity: a new dimension and framework

We again offer both old and new management strategies to handle the complexities. Refer to Table 1: Urgent and Inflexible Project Complexity Profile to examine the nature of the urgency of projects increases. Complexity Dimension 3: Urgency and Inflexibility. Today it seems like every project is urgent due to time-to-market compression and fierce competition in the global marketplace.

Project Management from Simple to Complex

Trying to manage a project on the fly is terribly inefficient and ineffective. By using strategic thinking to talk project complexity you will drastically increase your chances of completing successful projects time and time again. When it comes to project complexity, it is best not to think about it as a two-dimensional puzzle. Rather, project complexity is a three-dimensional puzzle that can be successfully solved with strategic thinking. In fact, project management can help manage some of the complexities, and in some cases, help to avoid some of these complexities from becoming too big a problem.

The management of complex projects

As projects have become more and more complex, there has been an increasing concern about the concept of project complexity. An understanding of project complexity and how it might be managed is of significant importance for project managers because of the differences associated with decision-making and goal attainment that are related to complexity. Complexity influences project planning and control; it can hinder the clear identification of goals and objectives, it can affect the selection of an appropriate project organization form, or it can even affect project outcomes.