Analysis of Complex Project Management Theories and Practices

This report delves into the intricacies of complex project management, examining various theories and ideas crucial for effective project handling. It explores human behavior within complex projects, emphasizing the project manager's role in aligning interests and providing relevant data. The report discusses complexity theory, systems thinking, and feedback loops, alongside the causes, properties, and environments of complex projects, including uncertainty and technical challenges. Furthermore, it presents project management tools and methods, such as the classical systems approach and PMI's talent triangle, to assist project managers in navigating project complexities. The study concludes by highlighting the vastness of project complexities and the need for project managers to be effective team leaders.

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Introduction
The present study comprises of the different theories and ideas related to the complex
project management along with the explanation of its environments, causes and properties.
Moreover, the discussion about different project management tools and methods that assist
the project manager to deal with the complex project are also covered in the present study.
The theories will be involving about human behaviour, controlling chaos, systems movement
and systems thinking.
Description of the ideas and theories specific to the complex project management
There are several useful theories and ideas helpful while handling the complex
projects fruitfully. Before understanding the theories and its application, it is very significant
to understand the human behaviour in handling the complex projects. A project manager is an
individual who relates the different processes and continuously engaged in several enquiries
and what they are doing presently and what they are going to do next and their reflexive in
thinking about the way they are going to handle the complex processes related to their local
situation of project (Cooke-Davies, 2011. p. 102).” Therefore, the relationship of the project
manager and project is very important for the alignment of interest and for the provision of
providing relevant quantitative data for analysis wherever required. The idea of coordination
will help to overcome the difficulties that may arise from the relationship where there are
multiple layers of hierarchy involved in managing a complex project.
While emphasizing on the theories- complexity theory is a combination of different
thoughts and ideas to help explaining different phenomena that cannot be explained by the
use of traditional theories. This theory describes the scenario that varies from comparative
order to chaos, where the system challenges control. In the complex situation of handling the
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project, there can be situations, which will be referred as to be stable or unstable, even
unpredictable. The other theories include ‘Edge of chaos’ and ‘fitness landscapes’.
The idea of systems thinking involves the components of different parts of the system
and their relationship attracting the interest of project management theorists (Remington &
Pollack, 2016). Therefore, considering the different phenomena, different aspects of complex
adaptive systems are implemented. The idea of feedback loop is considered to be important
while measuring the involvement of human behaviour and its propensity for events to be
reinforced.
Explanation of the causes, properties and environments of the complex projects
The causes, environment and properties of the complexity of the project can be
classified with a confused array of theories and ideas. Many authors classified the projects
according to the features of sources of complexity. Some of the causes of the complex
projects include uncertainty. It can be argued that uncertainty can be the cause of project
complexity and also a result of emergence and non-linearity (Svejvig & Andersen, 2015, p.
280). The factors that contribute towards uncertainty include technical complicacy, untimely
decision making, uncertain environmental changes, etc. The other cause includes technical
challenges, which emphasizes ability of the organization in coping up with technological
novelty.
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Figure 1: Complexity perspective for a project
Time and project complexity is also one of the aspects of causes and properties of
complex projects. Many of the projects are associated to a large range of environmental
impacts including major regulation changes, local and worldwide economic crises, etc.
Therefore, it can be said that there are several reasons for the causes of complexity, which
proportionately includes projects’ environments and properties (Kerzner, 2018).
Discussion of the tools and methods assisting project managers while managing complex
projects
There are various methods adopted by the project manager while resolving the
complexity of the project. Before applying the tool, it is very important for the project
managers to apply the classical systems approach in order to understand the in-depth of
complexity. It includes four phases- understanding the problem, gathering information,
analysing and refining the problem and lastly developing solution according to the problem.
Moreover, project manager need to focus on their personal development and foundation skills
in order to increase their knowledge in implementing different business strategies (Ahern,
Leavy & Byrne, 2014, p. 1375).
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PMI’s talent triangle will also assist the project manager to leverage their training,
seek out mentoring, and attain competencies. The talent triangle mainly emphasizes on three
areas- strategic business management, technical project management and leadership.
Conclusion
While concluding, it can be said that complexities of project can be vast and difficult
to be measured. A project manager has to go through various phases in managing the
complex project and need to serve as an effective team leader. The present study had
explained different theories and its application in order to shed light of different scenarios
that a project manager faces while managing the complexity of the project.
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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.
http://www.academia.edu/download/48199324/Ahern_et_al_2014._Complex_project
_mgmt_as_complex_problem_solving.pdf
Cooke-Davies, T. (2011, August). Aspects of complexity: Managing projects in a complex
world. Project Management Institute. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/managing-
projects-complex-world-6244
Kerzner, H. (2018). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John
Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.co.in/books?
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ment&ots=cJ54nKOzFz&sig=3bO9hQB5bsKC9zXRPUnPHL8XHjs
Remington, K., & Pollack, J. (2016). Tools for complex projects. Routledge.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/73f9/166b7ee4ea31780ae8d470e4ad305ccc5746.pdf
Svejvig, P., & Andersen, P. (2015). Rethinking project management: A structured literature
review with a critical look at the brave new world. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(2), 278-290.
https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/downloadFile/845043405428938/11%20Rethinking
%20project%20management.pdf
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