Complex Project Management: Knowledge And Integration

Introduction

The paper intends to discuss whether there are the key issues that have a significant effect on complexity or the world is inherently complex. The paper would consider ‘Managing Projects with High Complexity’ by Stephen Hayes and Daniel Bennett in order to analyze the key issues. Complexity is an uncertain situation and the paper does not agree with the concept of the Young Adult song. The paper would discuss that the complexity is not a permanent situation and it depends on the specific factors.

Discussion

Complex project are the projects which are uncertain, ambiguous, requires quick response and are influenced by external changes. Complexity in the context of the organization continues over a period of time which exceeds life cycle of the product. Complexity is desirable in the situation where integration issues exist. The behavior of management depends on the presence of the degree of complexity. Both the private and public sectors are dealing with the issue of complexity (Cooke-Davies, 2011, August). It is likely to understand that there are certain factors resulting in complexity and it is not a permanent situation.

 Examining the complex project and findings from the roundtable series of 2009, it can be said there are the key issues which impact on the complexity of the project. The key issues that effect on the complexity of the project are described as follows

Competition as a Weapon: Competition can be a positive attribute and act as a motivating factor in an open environment. But in the situation of a single stakeholder, it is likely to happen that competition can have ineffective outcomes (Schneider, Zec & Matthes, 2014). This is a significant reason for lowering the contract price below an achievable level. This is considered as major factor that empowers artificial competition and acts a complexity.

Lack of engagement between Industries and Government: The primary reason for complexity is lack of communication with senior government officials about the issues prevailing. The industries lack at finding the solution for project management complexity. The ICCPM allows such development of understanding and agreement between the government and officials to remove the issue of engagement (Cicmil et al., 2017). This a reason for the complex failure of project management and leads to complexity.

Stakeholder’s Perception of Success: The expectation and perception of the stakeholder are dependent on the project success. The success of the project also depends on the stakeholder interest in the project. The lack of alignment between the interests of both section is the reason for complexity (Alderman et al., 2013). The increase in the risk of complexity increases with increase in number of stakeholders and their different perception about the business and project management.

Public and Political Relations: There are specific situations where political factors are responsible for the complexity of a project. The political and corporate implications can have an adverse effect on the project. Environmental awareness and understanding of the situation are important for avoiding such complexity. 

Lack of Appropriate Procurement Practices: Lack of adequate project management procedure can have a negative impact on the project management. The rigid process of the project in the complex environment can limit the capability of an organization (Dao et al., 2016). This type of situation leads to an unknown risk and it becomes difficult for the industries and stakeholders to assess the situation. Thus inefficient procurement process has a moderate impact on the complexity.

Lack of acknowledgement of Risk: Traditional project management is likely to exclude the non-technical aspects of risks that can occur. They focus only on the accountability of technical or hardware risks. Complex issues such as stakeholders and political problems are often ignored and becomes a complex situation for the organization. It is required to take these soft issues under the consideration while solving the complex situation. Misunderstanding and lack of acknowledgement are thus factors that impact on the complexity (Ahern, Leavy & Byrne, 2014).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the key issues described by Stephen Hayes and Daniel Bannett in the book Aspects of Complexity is appropriate. This paper does not accept the argument of Young Adults song ‘Its a complex world’. Thus it can be concluded that complexity is not permanent and the world is not inherently complex. The paper concludes that the factors that have an impact on complexity are public and political relations, competition, stakeholders and procurement policies. The paper is efficient while justifying that these factors impact the complexity to an extent.

References

Ahern, T., Leavy, B., & Byrne, P. J. (2014). Complex project management as complex problem solving: A distributed knowledge management perspective. International Journal of Project Management, 32(8), 1371-1381.

Alderman, N., Ivory, C., McLoughlin, I., & Vaughan, R. (2013). Managing complex projects: networks, knowledge and integration. Routledge.

Cicmil, S., Cooke-Davies, T., Crawford, L., & Richardson, K. (2017, April). Exploring the complexity of projects: Implications of complexity theory for project management practice. Project Management Institute.

Cooke-Davies, T. (2011, August). Aspects of complexity: Managing projects in a complex world. Project Management Institute.

Dao, B., Kermanshachi, S., Shane, J., & Anderson, S. (2016). Project complexity assessment and management tool. Procedia Engineering, 145, 491-496.

Schneider, A., Zec, M., & Matthes, F. (2014). Adopting notions of complexity for enterprise architecture management.