Complex Project Management (CPM)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to introduce practitioners to the concept of Complex Project Management (CPM) and propose tools for analysing project complexity in the early stage of a project. As project become to include international stakeholders and interrelated activities, an increasing concern related to project complexity arises. Identifying sources of complexity turns to be crucial for achieving project's goals. As a matter of fact, complexity influences planning and control phases of a project, jeopardizing the three elements of the Iron Triangle (quality, cost and time). Therefore, it is crucial to define whether a project should be considered complex and why, starting from the early stage of the project life cycle. Introducing an analysis of project complexity in the initiation phase of a project helps project managers defining better goals and objectives, it guides in selecting the right resources, drives the definition of a project structure, and highlights soft spots where to strengthen control. In the last decades, the project management community has developed strategies and tools for spotting and managing these sources of complexity. Although a universal consensus on the definition of project complexity has not been yet achieved, this article guides practitioners from an introduction on the theoretical concept of complexity to widespread practical tools for analysing it in the initiation project stage.

Introduction

The concept of complexity is still not well defined by the academic community. Depending on the subject of research, different characteristics are identified and chosen to define the complexity of a specific topic. Nevertheless, several general definitions of complexity have been suggested and the researcher considers relevant reporting that one proposed by Sydney Dekker for differentiating "Complicated" and "Complex" systems. Complicated systems may be quite intricated and consist of a huge numbers of parts but they can always be taken apart and put together again. Complicated systems become complex when they are opened up to influences that lie way beyond engineering specifications and reliability predictions. Complex systems are held together by local relationships only. Each component is ignorant of the behaviour of the system as a whole and cannot know the full influences of its actions. The boundaries of what constitutes the system become fuzzy; interdependencies and interactions multiply and mushroom [Dekker et al., 2010]. From this definition it is possible to grasp some knowledge for identifying when we are dealing with a complex project but also which are the main characteristic that we should try to keep in control for avoiding complexity to grow.

In project contexts, the traditional project management paradigm assumes full pre-given knowledge about the project that is being managed. This, in accordance with the definition given above, is an approach that well fit a complicated project. In contrast to the traditional paradigm, more recent methodologies accept that not all information can be known before to start or in the initial phase of a project, pursuing a learning based approach [Terence et al., 2013]. Therefore, knowledge plays a central role for the definition of complex project. A complex project is characterized by continuously changing shape which requires to redefine goals and scope several times throughout the project life cycle. Methodologies such as Agile tried to address this problem through an iterative approach to projects. Agile project management perfectly fit the life cycle of product development (e.g. software development) since the outcome of one iteration can be accepted or declined, giving birth to a new iteration with the same goal in case the outcome is declined or the first iteration of a sequent phase if it is accepted. Moreover, this technique address the issue of a changing surrounding environment that can continuously affect project goals' expectations. Nevertheless, this approach does not address the issue of complexity for project which requires a right-first-time outcomes. When the goal of a project is to deliver a single outcome, such as the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen, there is no space for testing a different approach is required.