Executive's Guide to Project Management: Organizational Processes and Practices for Supporting Complex Projects

Part I

Challenges to Supporting Complex Projects

There is no simple accepted definition of a complex project. The best we have to offer are some of its characteristics from the proceedings of the 2008 NASA Project Management Challenge Conference (Mulenburg, Jerry, “What Does Complexity Have to do With It? Complexity and the Management of Projects,” 2008):

• Details: Number of variables and interfaces
• Ambiguity: Lack of awareness of events and causality
• Uncertainty: Inability to pre-evaluate actions
• Unpredictability: Inability to know what will happen
• Dynamics: Rapid rate of change
• Social Structure: Numbers and types of interactions

Complex projects are filled with uncertainty and unexpected change. Complexity, uncertainty, and the pace of the project all contribute positively to project risk. Risk increases as any of these three variables increases. In most cases these projects are trying to find solutions to critical problems whose solutions have evaded even the most creative professionals. These projects can also be seeking to take advantage of heretofore untapped business opportunities without a clear path as to how to do that. If organizations are to be successful in this environment they must:

• Employ management processes that are flexible.
• Empower the client and the project team.
• Provide an open environment in which creativity can flourish.
• Base decisions on what is best for adding business value.
• Avoid encumbering project managers with non-value-added work.

These are significant ...