ARTICLES
Project Management in Complex Environments Deborah Hein At its core, managing projects in complex environments is about the management of uncertainty associated with delivering project outcomes; especially the risk of abrupt and irreversible emergent effects that escalate rapidly. Projects that are complex can span multiple countries with widely differing cultures and world views, no organisation is immune to complexity. Project teams are increasingly multi-disciplinary and virtual, drawing expertise from government, industry and international partners. The use of virtual teams, whose members are distributed around the world in multiple time zones, has been made possible by the development of powerful IT tools and communication systems. However, this also means that many more people than ever before can influence the decisionmaking and implementation processes. The intrinsic complexity of projects, in part, is driven by political, social, technological and environmental issues, as well as including end user expectations which may change dramatically over the project life-cycle. Indeed, even minor projects can be complicated by hierarchical, siloed, and unnecessarily competitive organisational arrangements, which can foster breakdowns in communication and trust. Project management failures happen in all sectors. Throughout the world, there are examples of failures on similar scales within defence, infrastructure, public policy implementation, medical R&D, energy/ nuclear and financial systems and IT sectors. Often, interventions into projects that are complex through the application of traditional methods or tools results in worse outcomes for the project or organisation where other unforeseen issues have emerged. By addressing failures through the lens of ‘Complexity Management’ and the multidisciplinary approach it offers, potential solutions can be found to address uncertainty and reduce the incidence of failure. Discussions within the project management community highlight that project sponsors and purchasers appear eager to accept unrealistically low tenders from suppliers who then rely on ‘scope creep’ to drive the price up to realistic yet unbudgeted levels. It is widely acknowledged within the PM community that current tools and decision making processes
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are inadequate when challenged with having to understand complexity. Many project management organisations still remain dependant on standard linear probability versus impact risk assessments that lack the nuanced contingency cost provisions associated with complex risk events occurring. Institutionalised procurement practices mean that the officials or politicians making expenditure decisions are seldom experts in the actual capability being acquired, and so their choices tend to be risk averse and determined by legal frameworks of liability rather than actual needs and social benefits. This dysfunction is exacerbated by a lack of engagement between government and industry as rigid pre-award protocols tend to preclude full understanding and alignment until after the contract is signed. Projects that are complex have been characterised by many sources as “embodying uncertainty, ambiguity, dynamic interfaces and significant political or external influences”. Such projects also tend to run longer than the life-cycle of the technologies involved. Complex projects are undertakings for which traditional methods, practices and frameworks are inadequate in terms of scale, rate of change, heterogeneity, multiple pathways and ambiguous objectives. The methodology used must assess and comprehend project context, criticality, collaboration, convergence and confluence at various points of intervention along the project’s life-cycle to maintain flexibility through organisational agility and project resilience, thus maximising its chances of success. In short, projects which are merely complicated may only require traditional linear approaches to management, in contrast, complex projects demand the addition of adaptable, visionary leadership coupled with new processes and approaches. To fully comprehend program/project complexity the focus should encompass the whole spectrum of project dynamics, rather than discrete functional processes, placing it in context as part of a much larger whole.
BUILDING CAPABILITY IN COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS