System Thinking Tools and Techniques in Project Management

PPMP20012 - PROGRAM AND
PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
System Thinking Tools and Techniques..........................................................................................3
Texas City Refinery Explosion....................................................................................................5
BP Deep Water Horizon Oil Explosion.......................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
System engineering is referred to an interdisciplinary approach from the discipline of
engineering and management. It is considered as a significant approach in the aspects of project
management. It provides with opportunities to simplify and increase the efficiency of project
management and execution of the projects. It is required in order to execute a project
successfully. System thinking incorporates the elements such as environmental influences,
objects, attributes, relationship and boundaries. The essay will discuss the two eminent case
studies in the history of the petroleum industry. The cases studies of Texas City Refinery
Explosion and BP Deepwater Horizon will be discussed. The paper will apply the techniques and
tools of Deep Matrix and Heinrich’s Domino Model of Accidents to analyse the possible
reformative solutions for the explosions.
System Thinking Tools and Techniques
System thinking originated from the concepts of General System. It has emerged from the
concepts of engineering and later evolved as a combination of management and engineering. It
was developed by James Smuts and later developed as a General System Theory. The concepts
of system thinking can be understood as various policies and principles from the management
aspect in order to increase the intercommunication and interconnection between the various
systems of a system. System thinking enables to identify the various functions and processes of
the project or another system as different systems and further establishes greater efficiency and
management of the projects. System thinking is identified as a management principle which
creates opportunities for better management and organising the project entailing complex
procedures and assets rich functions (Adam and de Savigny, 2012). It aids a manager to deal
with the issues and difficulties in the portfolio management, analysing the quality of projects or
portfolios and organization management. The various tools and techniques involved in the
connotation of system thinking are BABOK, PMBOK, Lean, Six Sigma and TQM. These
techniques or tools can be used in order to examine the default areas in the projects and the cases
studies (Sebok, 2016). These tools provides with basis to identify the problems and issues in the
projects and portfolio. These approaches are developed in order to form reformative actions for
the project faults and accidents.
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