Complex Project Management

Project management services help organizations achieve project goals and objectives within scope, time, and budgetary constraints. They can also help optimize the allocation of resources and integrate the inputs that will drive the completion of the project's objectives. The development of a project plan is critical, as this document defines and confirms broader goals and specific objectives. The project plan also identifies tasks, describes how goals will be achieved, and quantifies the resources that are needed.

This is the traditional of projects management methodologies. Complex projects are undertakings for which traditional methods, practices and processes are inadequate in terms of scale, rate of change, heterogeneity, multiple pathways and ambiguous objectives. This is why CPM (Complex project management) has evolved over time as a result of the identification and recognition of issues exhibiting complex characteristics that traditional project management methodologies have not had the capability to adequately address. The complex project management function assesses and comprehends project context, criticality, collaboration, convergence and confluence at various points along the project life cycle. To enable the best possible prospect for success complex project managers require additional skills, knowledge and experiences in order to operate effectively in complex environments.

The Complex Project Manager Competency Standards have been developed to outline and define the project management paradigm (mindset), behaviors and knowledge as well as the special attributes required to operate effectively within the complex project environment. The standards provide a high level view of each competency, elements that contribute to each competency, the underpinning knowledge and detailed actions that must be demonstrated in order to be determined to be a competent complex project manager.

According to Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane Australia, the CPM strategic partner of the Australian Government’s Defense Materiel Organization (DMO), complex projects are those that:

• Are characterized by uncertainty, ambiguity, dynamic interfaces and significant political or external influences; and/or
• Usually run over a period which exceeds the technology cycle time of the technologies involved; and/or
• Can be defined by effect, but not by solution

Research indicates that traditional, linear project management tools and techniques, while still necessary, are often insufficient to manage the complexities of 21st century projects. But what are the elements deemed to be causing this disruption?

• Details – number of variables and interfaces
• Ambiguity – lack of awareness of events and causality
• Uncertainty – inability to pre-evaluate actions
• Unpredictability – the inability to know what will happen
• Dynamics – rapid rate of change
• Social structure – numbers and types of interactions
• Interrelationships – many interdependencies and interconnections exist