Project Management Complexity: An Analysis of Critical Issues

This essay delves into the complexities of project management, drawing upon Terry Cooke-Davies' book 'Aspects of Complexity' and insights from ICCPM roundtables. It examines whether project complexity stems from specific key issues or is an inherent characteristic, as suggested by the Young Adults' song 'It's a Complex World.' The essay identifies technical issues, human behavior, misaligned stakeholder views, tension between project and product success, political pressures, nontechnical risk acknowledgment, competition, procurement practices, project manager skills, estimation accuracy, and decision-making processes as critical factors influencing project complexity. It concludes that managing complex projects requires a higher-order management approach, competent project managers, and a willingness to engage the right people to deliver projects successfully. Desklib provides a platform to access this and similar solved assignments.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMPLEXITY
Project Management Complexity
Name of student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................................................2
Are there key issues that has its impact on complexity?...........................................................................................2
Conclusion............................................................................................................................................................... 5
Reference................................................................................................................................................................. 6

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Introduction
The book of Terry Cooke-Davies, Aspects of Complexity written by Daniel Bennett and
Hayes discuss about the complexity of the project management. In this article, there had been
some key issues that were highlighted for the participants in the ICCPM roundtables whose
impact was seen on the complex project success. Complexity has been assessing for various
reason. It can be through appointment of governance resources or appropriate management or by
positioning project portfolio for funding (Floricel, Michela & Piperca, 2016). The paper contains
the understanding of the project management complexity. Complexity is an individual
understanding which could encountered the technology or knowledge for the activity undertaken
by the people (Svejvig & Andersen, 2015).
Are there key issues that has its impact on complexity?
The first issue that was seen in the project was the technical issues for which the project
became complex. In the article, Pellerin had stated that 80 to 90 percent of the project failure
results in miscommunication and human issues (de Carvalho, Patah, & de Souza Bido, 2015).
The project success or failure completely depends on the people’s behavior.
The mentality of the project managers is to understand the tools and techniques of
managing the complex projects. Systemic risk could be cause when they fail to recognize the risk
of the project management (Albrecht & Spang, 2014). This risk could be caused by interaction
between the risks that the individual has. It has happened that they have failed to identify the risk
to make a decision and behavior issues.

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Complexity in human behavior comes in different ways. The client projects change the
scope of the project, important decisions are delayed, interfering with the implementation team
of the project (Pucciarelli & Kaplan, 2016). Decisions and actions are complicated which lack
the trust. The workforce implemented in the project are disincentivized through excessive of the
schedule pressure or poor morale and scope, schedule, quality pressure or cost of the project
(Whyte, Stasis & Lindkvist, 2016). Degree of project complexity is high which significantly
cause failure in communication.
It has been seen that people are talking about complexity in the project in which they
have talked about number of separate elements to interact which is the systemicity of the project.
There are some soft issues such as leadership, language, culture and personal relationship
management which have contributed to the complexity of the project (Nguyen et al., 2015).
A C-level project manager has a good practice of getting into the executive level for
further connection. There has been an effect of educating the business leadership which have
issues in delivery of strategy (Luo et al., 2016).
The key issues that are highlighted by the roundtables of ICCPM have its impact on the
complex project success.
 Views of Misaligned or Unaccommodated stakeholder for success: The expectation of
the divergent stakeholder has driven the success. The interest is aligned for the success of
the project which are driven from the expectation of divergent stakeholder.
 Tension between project success and product success: When there is failure in the
outcome of the project, it rectifies the success in the project and the product since the
problem is already been there for stakeholders’ interest. The stakeholder interests are

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associated with the clash of paradigms. If the number of stakeholder increases, then there
is a chances that the might come some differences in the project. The stakeholder has
invested their money without knowing about the project details
 Right things are militated with the pressure of political and public relations: The
pressure of a project of multibillion dollar need a timely cancellation of the project. This
makes difficult to resist the pressures of improving the decision making in the project. It
requires a comprehensive understanding and a situational awareness to couple with
organizational and personal courage which supports the effectiveness of the senior
leadership.
 Nontechnical risk acknowledgment and Lack of Understanding: The project risk has
technical aspect which are focused by Classical or Traditional project management.
Complex projects include soft systems, however, viewed as organic system. The risk is
managed and understood by changing the potential policy and result in need of paradigm
shift that can manage and understand the risk to be approach.
 Competition is used as weapon: Resources are used effectively and efficiently which
promotes an open environment for competition. The competition that has been created
artificially has drive an inefficient and ineffective outcome. In the environment that is
monopsonistic, there comes some responsibility of the customer and the supplier that
ensure a rational understanding of the real cost that de-risk the cost uncertainty.
 Procurement practices Institutionalized: The procurement procedures and processes
rigid the environment of the complex project to limit the agility and ability of avoiding
the unknown risk of realization.

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 Equipped some project managers as leaders to deliver a project: The skills of the
project managers should be multidisciplinary, and the knowledge should be
encompassing from various disciplines like the human resources, economics, engineering
and law.
 Predicted rational estimates on attaining future capability: The project estimation and
planning are affordable and realistic. The tools for cost estimation improves the
capability of the cost which are an important aspect.
 Unsuitable decision processes and current tools through which uncertainty could be
analyzed: The world is ambiguous and complex with current tools and processes, and the
mind of the human could analyze the uncertainty that poses some problem. Tools are
develop that require some investment on research which is the part of the system causing
complexity and uncertainty.
Conclusion
The study that has been done for the complexity of project management has concluded
that to manage a complex project is something that manages the higher order management of
activity. Tools that are used in the complexity of the project is not that appropriate to reach the
level of individual capability. It is important to identify the project complexity, approaches or
tools needed, identify the competences and skills for the tools, and engagement of the right
people for willingly delivering a project. The key issues that has been highlighted by the
roundtables of ICCPM have its impact on the complex project success which has been discussed
in the paper.

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Reference
Albrecht, J. C., & Spang, K. (2014). Linking the benefits of project management maturity to
project complexity: Insights from a multiple case study. International Journal of
Managing Projects in Business, 7(2), 285-301.
de Carvalho, M. M., Patah, L. A., & de Souza Bido, D. (2015). Project management and its
effects on project success: Cross-country and cross-industry comparisons. International
Journal of Project Management, 33(7), 1509-1522.
Floricel, S., Michela, J. L., & Piperca, S. (2016). Complexity, uncertainty-reduction strategies,
and project performance. International Journal of Project Management, 34(7), 1360-
1383.
Luo, L., He, Q., Xie, J., Yang, D., & Wu, G. (2016). Investigating the relationship between
project complexity and success in complex construction projects. Journal of Management
in Engineering, 33(2), 04016036.
Nguyen, A. T., Nguyen, L. D., Le-Hoai, L., & Dang, C. N. (2015). Quantifying the complexity
of transportation projects using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. International
Journal of Project Management, 33(6), 1364-1376.
Pucciarelli, F., & Kaplan, A. (2016). Competition and strategy in higher education: Managing
complexity and uncertainty. Business Horizons, 59(3), 311-320.

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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.
Whyte, J., Stasis, A., & Lindkvist, C. (2016). Managing change in the delivery of complex
projects: Configuration management, asset information and ‘big data’. International
Journal of Project Management, 34(2), 339-351.