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Aspects of Complexity
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Aspects of Complexity

Managing Projects in a Complex World

Terry Cooke-Davies
Project Mgmt Inst., 2011
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

This outstanding small volume draws from seminars on “Complexity in Project Management and the Management of Complex Projects” that the Project Management Institute sponsored in São Paulo, Sydney, Atlanta and Malta. Editor and project management consultant Terry Cooke-Davies used material from these seminars to assemble an elevated, thoughtful and well-documented treatise on the effective management of complex projects, complete with recommendations from the field – including the unusual advice to take a “fire-ready-aim approach” to project management. Given that the book’s chapters come from an array of experts, it has some unevenness and spots of stiff styling, but it is a strong package nonetheless. getAbstract recommends it to project managers, line managers and academics who study how leaders succeed with complex projects – or don’t.

Summary

Project Management for Complex Projects

Project managers often confront an overwhelming degree of complexity in extended, multifaceted projects. Such managers come to understand how to handle confusingly complicated projects with knowledge and intuition derived from years of hard-won experience – or they stumble and face project failure.

A study of more than 1,500 CEOs found that “today’s complexity is only expected to rise, and more than half of CEOs doubt their ability to manage it.” The high profile of strategic projects exacerbates this problem, at least for the primary stakeholders. Of course, corporations sometimes try to maintain risky projects with as low a profile as possible, so that, if they fail, it happens out of the public eye and away from community or media scrutiny.

The International Centre for Complex Project Management (ICCPM) says complex projects include: “uncertainty,” “ambiguity,” “dynamic interfaces,” and “significant political or external changes.” They extend “over a period which exceeds the product life cycles of the technologies involved or where significant issues exist.” Here is another definition: “If you don’t understand what will...

About the Author

Terry Cooke-Davies, chairman of Human Systems International, is a visiting fellow at the Cranfield School of Management.

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