Analyzing Reflection and Learning in Complex Project Management

This essay explores the critical role of reflection and learning in complex project management. It emphasizes that experience alone is insufficient for beneficial learning; instead, critical reflection, which involves interpreting experiences and using them as a source of learning and change, is essential. The essay discusses meta-competencies, such as communication, problem-solving, and analysis, which are developed through project academics and facilitate effective learning. It also distinguishes between reflection, critical reflection, and critical self-reflection, highlighting the importance of proactive critical reflectivity in improving management learning and ensuring project success. The conclusion underscores that a deep understanding of experience and a commitment to critical reflection are necessary for navigating the complexities of project management. Desklib offers this essay and many other resources to help students succeed.

Running head: COMPLEX PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Complex project management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion:.......................................................................................................................................2
Roles of Project Academics:........................................................................................................3
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................4

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Introduction:
Considerable initiation and efforts have been taken in past years to identify and organize
the factors such as knowledge guide, practice standards that are required for developing a project
manager’s competent performance. Both project management practitioners and researchers have
questioned about the sufficiency of these factors and recommended practices during addressing
their experience on project complexity. Complex and complexity describes the challenges and
problems that are encountered by the people during project management (Ahern, Leavy &
Byrne, 2014).
Discussion:
It is uncertain to predict the success or failure of project as it demands decision regarding
events that are likely to occur in future. Moreover, such success or failure is based on
stakeholders’ judgments from different perspectives. Thus, this uncertainty and ambiguity result
in project complexity. With the advancement of different technologies of communication and
societal values, the complexity got increased (Serrador & Turner, 2015). The fundamental
approach to project management is planning ability, creating project domains and to administer
control to achieve the probable results. Education and experience cannot be considered as equal
to each other as some experiences can be mis-educative which means that such experience can
distort the growth of further experience. In order to effectively learn from the experience, one as
a learner must have consciousness and humility level. Though personal experience can be a
useful resource in learning, still learners must establish ways to animate useful or beneficial
learning from experience in order to gain the required expertise for managing the complex
projects (Leal-Rodríguez et al., 2014).

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As cited by John Dewey that all experiences cannot contribute to beneficial learning.
Learners have the ability of critical reflection only when they can interpret their experience and
particularly use it as an origin of learning and change. Critical reflection enables project
participants to draw the link or connection between their learning and work experiences from
critical perspectives. This helps them to understand and changes interpersonal and organisational
practices that are required. Critical reflection allows one to set goals, use one’s past learning
experience into inform future action. One element of critical reflection is beneficial or effective
learning can be facilitated by meta-competencies, which can be developed through education.
Meta-competencies include communication, self-development, problem-solving, learning,
creativity, analysis and reflection. Project academics are created for education associated with
such meta-competencies (Cooke-Davies, 2011). The objectives of project academics vary
according to the cultures and needs of the organization; still there are some usual roles of project
academics. The project academy provides training and experience for professional development
of project workforce of organization through identification of competencies. The academy
recommend for leadership support and necessary resources for meeting specific requirements for
professional development of project workforce. It provides the common structure and
standardized terminology for project management and ensures the consistency of competencies
as well as associated activities with the goals, policies and corporate strategy. The academy is
responsible for understanding external stakeholders’ concerns and requirement as well as
aligning competencies and associated activities with them (Marchewka, 2014).
Reflection allows analysing the inferred assumptions, so that learners can be responsive
to alternate ways of behaving and reasoning. However, actions and experiences do not always
lead to productive learning. One component of experience is to set up a conceptual model of the

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way the world works. The conceptual model remains unchanged as long as experiences conform
to this structure and no learning happens. Personal crisis such as anxiety and avoidance strategy
also hinder learning as it absorb attention instead of facilitating calm reflection. Thus, reflection
can also be described as a type of reaction to experience. However, it is essential to distinguish
between reflection, critical reflection and critical self-reflection. Reflection is the process of
verifying the justification of one’ belief, while critical reflection is the process of verifying both
sources and consequences and assessing the validity of one’s presumption and critical self-
reflection is the process of reassessment of the one’s way of presenting problems as well as
one’s intention to believe, perceive and act. Management learning includes managers’ reflection
of their experiences, which thereby act as a learning resource and it can be strengthened by
critical reflectivity (Moon, 2013).
Thus it is recommended that effective delivering of complex project management
requires ability beyond minimum competence standards. Several organizations are trying to meet
this challenge by taking initiation and responsibility to develop sufficient people with proper
combination of behaviour, skills, experience to cope with complex project management.
Opportunities for relevant experience need to be gained for developing high-level expertization
for managing complex projects.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion it draws conclusion that until and unless we interpret our
experience on learning the complexity on project management then that experience cannot lead
to beneficial learning. Management learning can be improved through proactive critical
reflectivity. Participation in critical reflection helps one to confront and examine causality,

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contrast theory with practice along with identification of systemic issues all of which can help in
critical evaluation and transfer of knowledge.
References:

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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.
Cooke-Davies, T. (2011, August). Aspects of complexity: Managing projects in a complex
world. Project Management Institute. Serrador, P., & Turner, R. (2015). The relationship
between project success and project efficiency. Project Management Journal, 46(1), 30-
39.
Leal-Rodríguez, A. L., Roldán, J. L., Ariza-Montes, J. A., & Leal-Millán, A. (2014). From
potential absorptive capacity to innovation outcomes in project teams: The conditional
mediating role of the realized absorptive capacity in a relational learning context.
International Journal of Project Management, 32(6), 894-907.
Marchewka, J. T. (2014). Information technology project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Moon, J. A. (2013). Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice.
Routledge.
Serrador, P., & Turner, R. (2015). The relationship between project success and project
efficiency. Project Management Journal, 46(1), 30-39.