Effective Project Management, 8th Edition

CHAPTER 11Complexity and Uncertainty in the Project Landscape

The design, adaptation, and deployment of project management life cycles and models are based on the changing characteristics of the project and are the guiding principles behind practicing effective project management.

Don't impose process and procedure that stifles team and individual creativity! Rather create and support an environment that encourages that behavior.

—Robert K. Wysocki, Ph.D., President, EII Publications

CHAPTER LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Know how complexity and uncertainty affect the project landscape
• Incorporate requirements, flexibility, adaptability, change, risk, team cohesiveness, communications, client involvement, specifications, and business value into how you will choose and use a project management life cycle (PMLC) model
• Use a two‐level Requirements Elicitation process as the key to a best‐fit decision model

You have now completed the foundation of what we have been calling the traditional project management process. It was once the only way projects were managed. Then along came complexity, uncertainty, and a market that demanded speed and agility. The Agile age was officially launched with the publication of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and we have since entered the twenty‐first century with a collection of Agile Project Management (APM) approaches. Part III organizes many of these approaches into the landscape defined in Chapter 1, discusses ...