Managing Complex Projects: Deepwater Horizon Case Study

Running head: MANAGING COMPLEX PROJECTS
Deepwater Horizon Case Study
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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MANAGING COMPLEX PROJECTS
1. Introduction
Managing complex projects is one of the major aspects that is needed to be considered
on a priority basis for understanding all types of in built complexities. The major reasons that
are responsible for making this type of management of project difficult, mainly involve
performance and costs (Hayes & Bennett, 2011). The major indicators, which surround with
unpredictability in managing of a complex project are project timeline, budget or restraints,
project stakeholders, project teams and many more. The most significant skills that are
required for this type of complex project management are adaptability, expertise, leadership,
collaboration and communication. All of the mentioned skills are needed for fulfilling and
bringing effective management in any particular project. Thus, it is needed that management
of complex projects should be done properly so that goals and objectives of the project are
obtained in a better manner (Williams, 2013). The following report will be outlining a PfL of
Deepwater Horizon project with application of theories and practices of knowledge
management and Diamond model. Moreover, proper comparison of ideas to apply on the
project for learning for eventually raising practical implications will also be provided in this
report.
2. Discussion
2.1 Type of Complexity associated to PfL that affected Development of the Project
Acceding to Shenhar and Dvir (2007), the most significant challenge to manage any
kind of complex project is to achieve all the project goals within given constraints. The main
primary constraints of a project are project scope, budget, quality and even time taken to
complete the project work. A secondary constraint of project is to properly optimize
allocations of required inputs so that every previously defined objective is met (Fuchs &
Sandoval, 2013). The diamond model framework mainly emphasizes on effective explanation
of any particular project by considering four factors, namely technology, novelty, pace and
complexity.
The entire structure of the diamond model helps in analysing the respective project
whenever it is striving novelty, competing on speed, dealing with each and every
technological uncertainty and coping up with project constraints. Since, it is extremely
helpful in perfect assessment of the specified project after identification of all possible gaps
or challenges in the complex project, this particular diamond shaped framework is required
for selecting any type of appropriate and suitable action that can be utilized to that particular
project back to the track (Shenhar et al., 2005).
The four segments of this diamond model are novelty, pace, complexity and
technology and it is vital to analyse all the aspects of this model. Deepwater was approached
by its key stakeholders and hence it could be analysed on the basis of these four dimensions.
The main reason for the failure of this project was due to explosion on Deepwater Horizon
rig. Volume of oil escaping into sea was from damaged well that had capacity of 1000
barrels, however, US government released statement of over 60000 barrels of oil.

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MANAGING COMPLEX PROJECTS
Figure 1: Diamond Model Framework
(Source: Nicholas & Steyn, 2017)
The entire case scenario of Deepwater Horizon could be easily and promptly analysed
on the basis of the above mentioned diamond model framework. The description of this
application of Diamond Model in Deepwater Horizon case study is provided below:
i) Novelty: This is the first dimension of Diamond model framework. It defines
regarding the new product and also represents about limit till what the potential customers
could be familiar to product and the method to use the service or product. Chang et al. (2009)
stated that, the three types of novelty products include derivative products, platform products
and breakthrough products. Each of these three types of novelty products is extremely
important and significant and should be analysed on a major basis. In the case study of
Deepwater Horizon, the novelty products are the platform products (Teixeira & Pereira,
2015). As per the platform products, these can be referred to as the new generations of all the
previously existing products and such products can easily replace the previous products in a
better established market segment. Oil here is the pre existing product that is required to be
used in a better established market segment. Such products are hence extremely vital for
analysing the entire scenario. Platform novelty products can even bring few major
effectiveness and efficiency in the organization. Moreover, this was the first time when such
a significant project became unsuccessful and was unmanageable (Rugman, Van Den Broec

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& Verbeke, 1995). Oil was a novelty product as the customers were familiar with the product
type and it replaced the previous products. There are several types of oil quality, and hence it
was expected that Deepwater would be providing high quality of existing oil, however the
entire project became failure due to early execution without proper testing. The project goals
and objectives were also not fulfilled in a better manner and hence three major issues of
reliability of marketing research, specified marketing strategies for the product that is oil and
finally the time that is taken for defining as well as freezing of the product requirements. The
entire case or project of Deepwater Horizon became unsuccessful since the management was
unable to manage the project in an effective manner and hence it impacted on project
management (Joslin & Müller, 2015). The project was unsuccessful in respect to novelty
factor, since it was unsuccessful in providing high quality or advanced level quality of oil to
their users. Since it was a system project, the complexity was extremely high and several sub
systems were required to perform together. However, with the core objective of providing
high quality of oil, they ignored complexity of the project and hence without testing, the
project became failure.
ii) Technology: The second important and significant dimension of Diamond model
framework is technology. It is termed as one of the major and the most important and
significant aspect that is needed to be applied successfully so that all the applications could
be used in a better manner. The major and the most subsequent sources of the task
uncertainty in the specific project or organization are together called as technological
uncertainties. According to Nicholas and Steyn (2017), the technological uncertainty
comprises of one of the major and the most significant effect on several factors such as
interactions and communications, better designing and testing, needed number of all
designing cycles as well as respective timings of the designing freeze (de Carvalho, Patah &
de Souza Bido, 2015). The technological uncertainties also affect the entire technical
competency, which is eventually needed by the project members or project manager. There
are four distinctive levels or segments of technological uncertainties, which involve low
technological projects, medium technological projects, and high technological projects and
finally super high technological projects. Deepwater Horizon case study was a super high
technological project as according to this particular type of project, any new technology
should not be used in the initiation phase of the project. The major technical problems that
are being confronted by the project manager of Deepwater Horizon included cementing
procedure and hydrocarbons. The cement seal was faulty since the borehole base’s cement
has constantly been a failure that allowed oil to come out (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007). Thus, even
after trying the project became a massive failure according to technology dimension of
Diamond Model framework. The main reason for this type of failure is that the project
manager was unable to complete the phases and check impacts on designing and testing.
During testing, the project became failure and hence it is termed as unsuccessful for
technology aspect.
iii) Complexity: The third distinctive dimension of this specific diamond model
framework is the complexity of projects (Chang et al., 2009). It is the simplest methodology
that is highly required for defining major complexities with the help of using a hierarchical
framework system. Scope of the system is responsible for affecting project complexity to
high level. Furthermore, the entire project is also affected in this type of project. There are
three distinctive and vital complexity levels, which could be easily and promptly used to
distinguish within the several project management practices such as assembly projects,
system projects and array projects. There is a simple manner to properly define the several
levels of complexities by simply utilization of a hierarchical system framework or even sub
systems and the complexity of such projects majorly affect the project management and even