Complex Project Management

Traditional project management (PM) privileges planning and downplays the role of learning even in more complex projects. In contrast, this paper draws inspiration from two organisations that were found to have developed complex PM expertise as a form of complex problem solving (CPS), a practice with implicit learning because complex projects are unable to be completely specied in advance (Hayek, 1945). Central to this view of complex project management as a form of complex problem solving is the governance challenge of knowledge management under uncertainty. This paper proposes that the distributed coordination mechanism which both organisations evolved for this contingency can best be characterised as a 'common will of mutual interest', a self-organising process that was fostered around project goals and paced by the project life cycle (Kogut and Zander, 1992). The implications for theory, research, and practice in complex PM knowledge management are examined.

KEYWORDS:
Complex Project Management; Distributed Knowledge Management; Bounded Planning; Problem Solving; Common Will

Based on my extensive project management experience in large scale Oil & Gas and Chemical plants projects and thru study of Project Management Systems of different companies, I’ve developed detailed flowcharts of Project Management which can take Project Management Team from Project Initiation through to FEED & Detailed Engineering, Procurement & contracting, construction and commissioning and handover to Operations with a step by step approach. All the required inputs and outputs of each step are defined along with brief explanation. These flowcharts can be tailored to suit the requirement of individual projects.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

This exploratory case-based study investigates the development of project management (PM) as an organisational capability in two public sector organisations (PSO) during a period of rapid environmental change. Within the PM literature, the concept of project management capability (PMC) and how it develops over time through organizational learning is still an emerging tradition led to date by mainly European scholars (Lindkvist, Söderlund, Davies, Brady, Hobday, etc.). This investigation locates itself within this emerging tradition and represents a unique empirical opportunity to study the learning processes involved in PMC development in a complex setting that shows these processes in greater relief. In both of the organizations studied, the elevation and enhancement of PMC from a relatively low-level activity to a strategic supporting competence was triggered by radical and rapid change in the external environment during the 2000s. The main process insight is that PMC is found to be developed as a dynamic organisational capability in complex PM settings through organisational complex problem-solving (CPS).

The overall outcomes of the study build upon and extend the emerging PMC literature in at least three important respects, with implications for traditional PM research and practice. Firstly, in contrast to the mechanistic view of traditional PM, this study supports an integrated knowledge-based view of ‘projects as process’ and ‘PM as practice’. In this view, a project is seen to be ‘a mode of organising to accomplish a temporary undertaking’ and PMC is seen as a strategic organisational practice in organising complex projects. Secondly, PMC is honed as a practice through goal-directed organisational CPS. This builds upon and extends the work of Popper on the evolutionary growth of knowledge by revealing problemsolving as a two-stage process of differentiation-integration, or disorder-order. In contrast to traditional PM which follows a path from ‘order to order’, the development of PMC as an organisational capability is found to proceed from ‘order to disorder to order’. Thirdly, using the lens of PM as practice, a 'distributed organising' approach is suggested for coordinating the formation of ‘complex knowledge’ under organisational CPS, which is inherently emergent and dynamic. This contrasts with the ‘centralised planning’ approach of traditional PM, which assumes that knowledge is manifest in pre-given plans that are executed with little organisational learning expected beyond the application of prior knowledge.

KEYWORDS:
Project Management; Dynamic Organisational Capability; Practice; Complex Problem-Solving; Distributed Organising; Disorder; Entropy

In contrast to traditional projects, which are assumed to be fully specied and then executed with little learning anticipated, complex projects cannot be fully specied at the outset and require continuous learning over their life cycles. Nevertheless, the key role of knowledge formation and learning in managing complex projects is underdeveloped for expanding project capability boundaries to include knowledge uncertainty and indeterminacy. Drawing inspiration from Karl Weick's enactivist ideas and an empirical study of two organizations that developed project capability for complex projects, the paper develops an integrated view of projects and project management that is grounded in problem solving learning and organizing. More specically, a project is reconceptualized as 'a mode of organizing to accomplish a temporary undertaking' with intrinsic learning. This perspective views complex projects under knowledge uncertainty as learning organizations, with implications for project management theory and practice.  KEYWORDS: Project Management; Complex Problem Solving; Knowledge Formation; Modes of Organizing and Learning (MOL); Practice

In traditional project management, knowledge integration assumes upfront plans as explicit knowledge. For complex projects that cannot be fully specified in advance, however, knowledge integration requires emergent learning in situated contexts (Lindkvist), which involves explicit knowledge (know-that) and experiential knowledge (know-how).
    To expand the knowledge boundaries of traditional project management, the root-metaphor perspectives of American philosopher Stephen Pepper (1942) are interpreted as a project management framework, focusing on Mechanism for traditional project management and Contextualism for situated approaches. Using this root-metaphor
framework, explicit knowledge and experiential knowledge are mutually complementary when projects are viewed as modes of organizing and learning for temporary undertakings, which encompasses process and task. The implications for research and practice include using the framework for situated research, where Contextualism has greater
explanatory power, and for the management of project diversity — traditional, complex, portfolio, and program projects.

KEYWORDS: Project Management; Root Metaphors; Knowledge Formation; Mode of Organizing and Learning (MOL)

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend the learning boundaries of traditional project capability, which follows the linear planning paradigm, in order to include non-linear complex projects that cannot be completely specified and planned in advance, and so require continuous learning over their life cycles.

Design/methodology/approach
Based on an earlier empirical investigation, where complex-project capability (CPC) is developed through dynamic organizational learning based on non-linear problem solving, the paper examines some of the conceptual and practical implications of this process insight. The focus here is on incomplete pre-given knowledge and emergent knowledge creation during CPC development.

Findings
Using the three interrelated dimensions of project type, knowledge creation method, and organizational learning approach, the paper reinterprets Karl Popper’s linear problem solving model for learning in traditional projects by introducing the concept of knowledge entropy (disorder) for learning in non-linear complex projects. The latter follows a path from “order to disorder to order” rather than from “order to order” under traditional assumptions.

Research limitations/implications
By identifying a common learning process at individual, group, and organizational levels, developing CPC can be viewed as a “learning organization”. This multi-level approach facilitates research into distributed organizing for emergent knowledge creation during CPC development.

Practical implications
In contrast to traditional planned projects with up-front prior knowledge, complex projects are characterized by incomplete knowledge. The challenge of dealing with knowledge uncertainty in complex projects through continuous learning has practical implications for project learning, planning, knowledge management, and leadership.

Originality/value
The concept of knowledge entropy (disorder) extends the learning boundaries of traditional projects, where little learning is anticipated, by including complex projects with knowledge uncertainty requiring continuous learning.

KEYWORDS:
Discovery, Organizational Learning, Practice, Problem Solving, Complex-Project Capability, Uncertainty, Knowledge Entropy

Recently, a stream of project management research has recognized the critical role of boundary objects in the organization of projects. In this paper, we investigate how one advanced scheduling tool, the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS), is used as a temporal boundary object at various stages of complex projects. The IMS is critical to megaprojects which typically span long periods of time and face a high degree of complexity and uncertainty. In this paper, we conceptualize projects of this type as complex adaptive systems (CAS). We report the findings of four case projects on how the IMS mapped interactions, interdependencies, constraints, and fractal patterns of these emerging projects, and how the process of IMS visualization enabled communication and negotiation of project realities. This paper highlights that this advanced timeline tool acts as a boundary object and elicits shared understanding of complex projects from their stakeholders.► We examine how advanced timeline tools can be used as a temporal boundary object. ► The Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) is used as an example. ► IMS can act as a powerful enabler of collective sensemaking in complex projects. ► IMS can contribute to disentangling the domains of complex adaptive systems.

As the world of Information Technology (IT) engineering becomes more complex every day, the formal study of project complexity becomes more and more important for managing projects effectively, to avoid poor performance and failure. Complexity is not yet clearly understood nor sufficiently defined and the terminology itself is being overloaded and over-used. This paper is a systematic literature review that attempts to identify and classify proposed definitions and measures of IT project complexity. The results include a map of the identified approaches and definitions, a list of classifications of project complexity, a set of proposed measurement tools and complexity measures available to practitioners. The paper contributes to establishing a common language when discussing complexity, as well as to a better understanding of project complexity and its implications to practical IT engineering projects.

As the world of Information Technology (IT) engineering becomes more complex every day, the formal study of project complexity becomes more and more important for managing projects effectively, to avoid poor performance and failure. Complexity is not yet clearly understood nor sufficiently defined and the terminology itself is being overloaded and over-used. This paper is a systematic literature review that attempts to identify and classify proposed definitions and measures of IT project complexity. The results include a map of the identified approaches and definitions, a list of classifications of project complexity, a set of proposed measurement tools and complexity measures available to practitioners. The paper contributes to establishing a common language when discussing complexity, as well as to a better understanding of project complexity and its implications to practical IT engineering projects.

In project management it is generally understood that things may be complicated and a challenge to manage effectively, but that problems will eventually be resolvable. This book explores another dimension where ?standard operating procedures', ?out of the box' solutions and ?recipe knowledge' cannot be counted on to deal with unforeseen events that create chaotic conditions and uncertain outcomes. This dimension has pushed leaders to acknowledge the need to search for, identify and test new approaches in managing projects and hence the related risks. Complex projects are characterised by an unforeseeable development which is beyond the expectation or imagination of the individuals managing the system. This book discusses the implications of complexity for risk management. Through this discussion the characteristics of Complex Risk Management (CRM) as a field of complex project management are identified. One of the core questions is: to what extent is it possible to use the know-how from business contexts to manage risks in projects which involve environmental and/or social complexity?

In Social Network Analysis (SNA), the centrality and Centralization are key performancing indicators for measuring person's (organization's) position and power in a organizations. This paper focuses on connecting the organizational power with organizational relationship, and quantify the power by three major indictors including degree Centrality, betweenness centrality, and clossness centrality. Followed by the SNA algorithm, the 2010EXPO are further studied for a case to compare different types of power in traditional organizations and the complex ones. And the final conclusion comes out to show that the power belonged within the traditional organization structure and the project organization network are different, and the following style is more close to real practices.