International Research Network on Organizing

Running head: MANAGEMENT OF COMPLEX PROJECTS
Management of Complex Projects
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Project for learning
‘The Australian Government’s response to Coronavirus (COVID 19)’
COVID 19, or the coronavirus has been shaking the world since middle of February
2020. The virus attacks the respiratory system of people and gives symptoms like common flu
with dry cough, fever, and difficulty in breathing. It is extremely contagious, as the virus spreads
through contacts and sneezes and coughs of the infected people. The most striking feature of this
virus is that it is spreading through many asymptomatic individuals. Even before realizing and
taking any measure, the virus attacked millions of people worldwide. On March 11, World
Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. According to the record by
WHO, it has killed 50000 people across the world while number of affected cases has crossed 1
million (World Health Organization 2020). The attack started with Wuhan in China and within
15 days the world has gone into lockdown to prevent the spread of virus through contact. Hence,
almost all the governments have appealed people to stay indoors and maintain social distancing
to flatten the curve of the COVID 19 cases. Australia has not been infected as much as the other
first world countries in the northern hemisphere, although the sudden outbreak of coronavirus
has created emergency and unexpected situation all over the Australian economy. As of April 3,
2020, total corona-positive cases in Australia is 5,350, with 28 deaths and 585 recovered.
Number of currently infected patients is 4,737 (Worldometers.info 2020). The government of
Australia has taken quite a few measures to tackle the unexpected pandemic, among which
maintaining social distance is the primary one. The unexpected project require actions from all
the sectors, especially in the healthcare and the Australian government announced a fund of
$17.6 billion, which is almost 0.9% of the Australian GDP to keep the economy going. The
government imposed travel restrictions, usage of masks, self-isolation for the residents, along

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with various financial supports for different health services in the hospitals (Health.gov.au 2020).
All of these can be termed as an emergency or unexpected project for the government of
Australia, which has a widespread impact on the health services, social and community lives,
employment, production level and all other related economic activities in the nation. This report
will present context of the development of the coronavirus response project of the Australian
government with its expected and real outcomes, and the main stakeholders by applying relevant
theories on managing and implementing complex project. The project will focus on the actions
taken by the Australian government and their approaches to combat the national issues related to
coronavirus outbreak.
Complex project management
Complex projects are those that contain variety of uncertainties with varying degree. In
other words, a project can be termed as complex where there are multiple uncertainties and
interdependencies are present involving several teams and stakeholders (Williams 2013).
Criticalities arise in terms of size, timeframe, interconnectedness and ambiguity level and once
complexities arise, traditional project management techniques cannot deliver the expected
outcomes. The coronavirus attack and the project to prevent further spread of the virus has taken
the shape of an extremely critical issue. It has unknown dependencies, and uncertainties, extreme
volatility, there are interconnectedness between different teams and stakeholders, technology,
cost and timeframe are crucial and majorly unavailable, and speed of transmission is extremely
high for COVID-19 and therefore, the project requires different treatment than the traditional
projects. Hence, to develop the project, the Cynefin framework and Diamond model can be
applied.

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Cynefin framework can be called a leader’s framework used for decision making in a
complex project. It presents five contexts or domains for decision making, namely, Obvious or
Simple, Complicated, Chaotic and Complex and the last one Disorder. The leaders or managers
need to assess the first four situations and take appropriate decisions. When they cannot
determine which of the four contexts is dominant, then the situation of disorder (Snowden
and Boone 2007). This framework is useful for the managers in understanding the context of
the problem they are in and take better decisions, as each of the context requires different types
of actions and decisions on the basis of the cause and effect relationships and at the same time,
they can also estimate the situational outcome in case they make mistakes in decision making.
This framework is highly useful for evaluating project issues from new viewpoints, assimilating
complex concepts, and addressing the real world problems as well as opportunities (Dykstra and
Orr 2016). While the simple and complicated contexts are backed by complete information and a
precise cause and effect relationships, the complex and chaotic contexts are based on incomplete
information and ambiguous cause and effect relationships. When the dominance of any of these
situation is unclear, the context of disorder appears and the scenario are broken down into
smaller components and assigned to those four domains for making decisions.

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Figure 1: Cynefin framework for complex project management
(Source: Snowden and Boone 2007)
Another useful framework for complex project management is the Diamond model,
developed by Shenhar and Dvir (2007). The four dimensions of the Diamond model are
Technology, Novelty, Pace and Complexity. This model is acclaimed for evaluating the risks and
benefits of a complex project and accordingly developing solutions. Novelty addresses the level
of newness, uniqueness or innovativeness of the project through the parameters of Derivative
(upgradation), Platform (development of new product) and Breakthrough (development of
unique and unfamiliar product). Technology addresses level of technicalities, ranging through
Low-tech, Medium-tech, Hi-tech and Super-tech level. Complexity represents the system scopes
with effects on the organizational structure and hierarchy of the project and includes parameters
of Assembly, System and Array. While assembly involves simplest form of organizational
structure for the project, array requires advanced tools and crucial soft skills. Lastly, the Pace
dimension indicates the timeframe and scheduling of the project and includes parameters like

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Regular, Fast-competitive, Time-critical and Blitz. While in regular pace, timeframe is not
crucial, in the blitz, the project is considered to be extremely urgent (Shenhar and Dvir 2007).
Figure 2: Diamond model for complex project management
(Source: Shenhar and Dvir 2007)
From the explanation of the abovementioned models, it can be said that to resolve the
complex issues related to coronavirus, both the models can be useful for developing combat
projects by the Australian government. Firstly, in case of Cynefin model, the Australian
government can assess the information available and the cause effect relationship while making a
decision regarding measure development. For example, the government has the number of
COVID-19 positive cases, number of deaths and recovered patients, followed the information on
the cause and effect of the virus transmission among people. Hence, measures can be taken

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accordingly. Secondly, if diamond model is followed, then the government has information like,
COVID-19 is a new virus, unfamiliar to the human body and in terms of novelty, breakthrough
measures must be taken. It also required hi-tech technology involvement to continue the supply
of masks, gloves and ventilators for the patients and the health workers. Due to its
interconnectedness and advanced level of cost involvement, the complexity of the project falls
under the array parameter and lastly, as the outbreak of corona is happening extremely fast, the
pace of the project should fall under the blitz parameter.
Implementation of Complex projects: Managing the unexpected
During project implementation, the environmental impact and unexpected events are not
planned beforehand. However, when any unexpected event occurs, the managers must take
prompt actions to handle the emergency situation. As seen in case of COVID-19 pandemic, the
outbreak of the virus has been so exponentially fast, that even before realizing people are getting
infected. This outbreak has been affecting the global economy severely including that of
Australia and to fight this unexpected challenge, the aim of the government is to design and
implement plans to flatten the curve of COVID-19 cases in Australia and protect the people.
Hence, the nature of the issue is unexpected and complex and require emergency actions from
the Australian government.
As stated by Söderholm (2008), the practices of project management includes measures
for efficiently executing the plan while avoiding the deviations and challenges as much as
possible. The unexpected events create much complexities for project management and the
common approaches to deal with such events include innovative actions, application of
detachment strategies, scheduling intensive meetings and negotiations of project conditions.

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Another study by Nachbagauer and Schirl-Boeck (2018) shows that project implementation
includes three mandatory phases, such as, anticipation, coping and adoption that occur both at
the team level and project managers’ level and while dealing with unexpected and complex
projects, the combination of opposite dimensions is required. For example, high degree of
flexibility and transparent communication must be combined with clear responsibilities and
transparent decision making structures.
The understanding of project complexity, its management and efficient implementation
process is highly necessary due to the differences in the decision making and achieving goals and
objectives of the project when it becomes complex. It involves issues like uncertain outcomes,
incomplete information, uniqueness, impact on stakeholders and urgency. Janssen, Van Der
Voort and van Veenstra (2015) highlighted that the risk of failure is much higher in case of
complex projects and the reasons can differ from one project to another. In such juncture, the
models like Cynefin framework and diamond models can be useful.
China faced SARS emergency during 2003 and developed National Emergency
Management System (NEMS) for coping with challenges of the crisis and disaster management.
Lu and Xue (2016) examined and found that low level of professionalism, inefficient plans, not
relevant to the crisis, lack of accountability and lack of unified leadership were the major issues
for inefficient NEMS project implementation. The COVID-19 outbreak is also another example
of inefficient crisis management project implementation by China. Nachbagauer (2017)
mentioned that anticipation of crisis is one crucial aspect for implanting efficient risk
management and complex project management plans.

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Cynefin model and the diamond model both have advantages and disadvantages. Firstly,
in case of cynefin model, the project managers must be able to evaluate the domain of the crisis
situation based on the information available and its implications on cause and effects. While this
model helps in narrowing down the contexts to address the disorder in complex projects and
taking efficient combat measures, on the other hand, it can stay in disorder state for longer if the
managers do not have proper information and understanding (Shalbafan et al. 2018).
Secondly, in diamond model, the benefits lie in the approach that ‘one size does not fit
all’, that is, this model highlights the differences that exist among the complex projects and make
the managers adopt operations specific to the project characteristics. The larger the diamond, the
greater is the risk and complexity involved in the project (Parker, Parsons and Isharyanto 2015).
On one hand, this model focuses on the four major dimensions of a project, novelty, technology,
complexity and pace, and compare between the current model and expected outcome of the
project, while the challenges lies in implementation of measures when there is lack of proper
resources, which can lead to failure of the project (Carvalho and Rabechini Jr. 2015).
From the above discussion, it can be said that while dealing with unexpected and
complex events like the COVID-19 outbreak, the above mentioned models can be appropriate
while taking effective measures. Both these models involve multiple teams or stakeholders and
examine their interconnectedness, useful for designing combat measures against coronavirus.
Both can use real data on the event for understanding the actual situation, like if simple,
complicated, chaotic, complex or disorder dominates, or the level of novelty, technology, pace
and complexity persists, which is possible as the Australia government has correct information
on COVID-19 cases in the country and all the other factors acting as causes and effects, as well
as available technologies and equipment, and current and required pace of the combat project.

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Thus, the cynefin model and the diamond model both are beneficial for the Australian
government to understand the complexity of the project required to address the issues from the
unexpected coronavirus outbreak and to design and implement measures on the basis of the
difference between the available and expected cost, technology, pace, hierarchy and regulation in
the structure of the combat project to flatten the coronavirus curve in Australia.

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References
Söderholm, A., 2008. Project management of unexpected events. International Journal of
Project Management, 26(1), pp.80-86.
Shenhar, A.J. and Dvir, D., 2007. Reinventing project management: the diamond approach to
successful growth and innovation. Harvard Business Review Press.
Snowden, D.J. and Boone, M.E., 2007. A leader's framework for decision making. Harvard
business review, 85(11), p.68.
Janssen, M., Van Der Voort, H. and van Veenstra, A.F., 2015. Failure of large transformation
projects from the viewpoint of complex adaptive systems: Management principles for dealing
with project dynamics. Information Systems Frontiers, 17(1), pp.15-29.
Lu, X. and Xue, L.A.N., 2016. Managing the unexpected: Sense‐making in the Chinese
emergency management system. Public Administration, 94(2), pp.414-429.
Nachbagauer, A., 2017. Beyond Risk Management: Managing the Unexpected. Pînzaru,
F./Alexandra Zbuchea, A./Brătianu, C./Vătămănescu, E.-M./Mitan, A.(Hrsg.): Shift, pp.133-146.
Parker, D.W., Parsons, N. and Isharyanto, F., 2015. Inclusion of strategic management theories
to project management. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.
Carvalho, M.M.D. and Rabechini Jr., R., 2015. Impact of risk management on project
performance: the importance of soft skills. International Journal of Production Research, 53(2),
pp.321-340.
World Health Organization, 2020. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): situation report, 67.

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Williams, T.M. ed., 2013. Managing and modelling complex projects (Vol. 17). Springer.
Health.gov.au, 2020. Government Response To The COVID-19 Outbreak. [online] Australian
Government Department of Health. Available at: <https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-
alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/government-response-to-the-covid-19-
outbreak> [Accessed 4 April 2020].
Worldometers.info, 2020. Australia Coronavirus: 5,550 Cases And 30 Deaths - Worldometer.
[online] Worldometers.info. Available at:
<https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/> [Accessed 4 April 2020].
Dykstra, J.A. and Orr, S.R., 2016, October. Acting in the unknown: the cynefin framework for
managing cybersecurity risk in dynamic decision making. In 2016 International Conference on
Cyber Conflict (CyCon US) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Nachbagauer, A.G.M. and Schirl-Boeck, I., 2018, June. New ways to managing the unexpected
in megaprojects. In EURAM 2018 Conference, Reyjkavik, Island.
Shalbafan, S., Leigh, E., Pollack, J. and Sankaran, S., 2018. Decision-making in project portfolio
management: using the Cynefin framework to understand the impact of
complexity. International Research Network on Organizing by Projects.

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Appendix
Summary of the selected case
Characteristics of the project: Australian government will plan, design and implement
measures to address the issues that emerged due to sudden and unexpected outbreak of
coronavirus (COVID-19). The project will focus on the overall health benefits for the
Australians, and will involve major investment in the health sector for emergency equipment,
such as, masks, sanitizers, ventilators and other medicines, and in the economy to continue the
supply chain for food and other essential services.
People’s expectation: efficient and urgent measures will be taken to address the healthcare
issues not only for COVID-19, but also for other regular healthcare issues, along with basic
services, like food, and banking to keep life running during the lockdown period. They also
expected to get adequate face masks and sanitizers for precautions and adequate testing process
in hospitals in case of anyone felt any symptoms.
Real outcome: Australian government has allotted $17.6 billion economic support package, $2.4
billion health package, $669 million for expanding Medicare-subsidised telehealth services for
all Australians for having access to quality healthcare while staying at home, home delivery
services for regular medicines for people unable to go to local pharmacies, supplying face masks
to all, especially for medical professionals, testing people with symptoms on an urgent basis,
monitoring, and imposing travel restrictions to limit the infection.
Difference between expected and real outcomes: there was not much differences in the
expected and real outcomes. The Australian government has been able to keep the situation

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under control, which is reflected from the number of corona affected cases in comparison to the
other first world countries.
Initiation of project: the Australian government and the Health department initiated this
coronavirus combat project to prevent further massive outbreak of the virus in Australia and keep
the causalities to a minimum, which could not be done by China, Italy, Spain and the United
States.
Main stakeholders: The Australian government, all the citizens of Australia and all the sectors
of the economy, which includes various employment domains.