CHAPTER 2
Applying Complexity Thinking to Projects
“Complexity causes confusion, which ultimately leads to failure.”
—JIM CREAR, CIO, THE STANDISH GROUP INTERNATIONAL
So what do complexity, chaos, and uncertainty have to do with managing projects? As Chris Zook of Bain & Company’s Global Strategy Practice contends, “As the business landscape becomes more brutal, two out of three companies will need a new business strategy to stay alive.”1
To turn a new business strategy into reality, organizations will continually resize, restructure, reengineer, transform, and explore new models of management and leadership. Leaders around the globe are looking for ways to understand the nature of global change and to prepare for the significant transformation initiatives that will be necessary to remain competitive.
Roger Lewin and Birute Regine provide the context for complexity thinking.
ROGER LEWIN and BIRUTE REGINE
On the Edge of the Business world2
The business world is experiencing accelerating, revolutionary change, driven by rapid technological innovation, the globalization of business, and not least, the arrival of the Internet and the new domain of Internet commerce. The change toward what might be called “the connected economy” rivals the onset of the Industrial Revolution in its impact on society and the way commerce is transacted. Managers are finding that many of their long-established business models are inadequate to help them understand what is going on, or how to deal with it. Where managers once operated with a machine model of their world, which was predicated on linear thinking, control, and predictability, they now find themselves struggling with something more organic and nonlinear, where limited control and a restricted ability to predict are the norm.
IS CONVENTIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT ENOUGH?
A decade ago a major author and contributor to project management theory, Peter Morris, had this to say about the status of project management: “Project management has traditionally been thought of as the process of accomplishing a task on time, in budget, and to technical specification. Today that view is changing to something much more ambitious, exciting and challenging.”3
Morris’ first statement describes the traditional or basic project management approach—a logical, linear process to achieve a well-defined goal. The methodology for achieving that goal is well defined:
Identify the problem/need (requirements)- Decompose the problem into logical pieces (deliverables, work packages, activities)
- Do the necessary work to create these pieces (execution)
- Integrate the completed pieces into the final solution (validation and acceptance).
But if project management is that easy, why do major problems invariably arise in managing projects? Often, the more complex the project, the more the proponents of project management exhort project managers to follow the traditional linear approach strictly. If competence in project management disciplines is required to manage the significant change necessary to transform companies, we must ask ourselves if the current project management process is up to the challenge.
The paradigm we use to manage projects goes something like this: If we can decompose the work effort into manageable chunks of work applying reductionism (which postulates that complex systems can be completely understood in terms of their components4), we can reduce the complexity and risk, develop a plan, and then execute and rigorously control changes to the plan. Reductionist theory is the basis of many of our business management approaches, including strategic planning, business planning, performance evaluation, budgeting, and yes, project management.
Frances Storr, occupational psychologist at the Herrmann Institute, describes our changing ideas of management in her work, That’s Another Fine Mess You’ve Got Me Into: The Value of Chaos in Organizational Analysis.
FRANCES STORR
That’s Another Fine Mess You’ve Got Me into:
The Value of Chaos in Organizational Analysis5
The belief is that one can divide the organization’s operational plan down into its component parts, allocate responsibilities, sum the resulting actions and the overall aims of the plan will be achieved. Most models of management ignore the reality of organisations as non linear feedback systems and complexity theory suggests a new approach to organisational analysis. Theories of complexity offer a new way of thinking and a new way of seeing the world. In a nonlinear system where slight variations amplify into unpredictable results, the long term future is unknowable. Therefore the skill is not to predict the future but to see patterns…. One should remain aware of the whole and resist analysing the parts to death.
Although complexity theory is relatively new, thought leaders and practitioners in the field of project management are beginning to embrace its tenets. The Project Management Institute (PMI®) Research Program is actively exploring the nature of complex projects and the relevance of complexity theory to project management. New project management methods and techniques that are adaptive, iterative, agile, and sometimes extreme are emerging. Leaders in the field are beginning to realize that a new paradigm is needed for managing complex projects—one that employs an adaptive method of project management versus the more conventional reductionist approach that emphasizes planning and control.
CONVENTIONAL VERSUS ADAPTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Our inclination is to manage projects using the traditional reductionist, control-based methods. Indeed, PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide),6 which is widely accepted as the gold standard for codifying the practice of project management, presents a structured, logical approach to project management.
Using this project management model, we decompose the work into manageable components and then plan project activities in a structured manner. Once the detailed plan is created, we meticulously control changes so that we are not distracted or deterred from the plan. This works quite well for projects that are well-understood, stable, and predictable. However, 21st century projects are increasingly proving to be elusive, dynamic, and riddled with complexity. Thus, the contemporary adaptive project management model is emerging. This approach recognizes that some projects are not predictable and must be managed in a very different manner using complexity thinking, which teaches us to adapt to our environment for our very survival. In his book Right-Brain Project Management: A Complementary Approach, B. Michael Aucoin considers the need for an adaptive approach to project management to accommodate unpredictability on projects.
B. MICHAEL AUCOIN
Right-Brain Project Management:
A Complementary Approach7
A large part of what is wrong with project management is that external forces on the project demand flexibility and high performance while the dominant model for applying project management is structured. That model delivers great performance when the need is familiar and predictable, but struggles when the need is novel and ambiguous.
Twenty-first century projects are chaotic, difficult to predict, and subject to unbending time-to-market demands. Today’s project teams need to deal with technology that changes constantly, global markets that are complex and evolving, ambiguous corporate strategies, and poorly understood business requirements.
Conventional project management practices, which originated in the 1950s using mathematical models and structured planning approaches, assume a stable and predictable environment.8 Conventional project management works well and should be used for predictable, repeatable projects; however, this approach has proven to be no match for chaotic 21st century projects. Table 2-1 compares the characteristics of projects that can successfully use conventional project management practices with the characteristics of projects that require a more adaptive project management model. A blend of the two project management models is almost always the answer. The trick is to know when and how to apply which approach.
TABLE 2-1. Characteristics of Conventional versus Adaptive Project Management
| Conventional Project Management | Adaptive Project Management |
|---|---|
| Structured, orderly, disciplined | Spontaneous, disorganized |
| Relies heavily on plans | Evolves as more information is known |
| Predictable, well-defined, repeatable | Surprising, ambiguous, unique, unstable |
| Unwavering environment | Volatile and chaotic environment |
| Proven technologies | Unproven technologies |
| Realistic schedule | Aggressive schedule, urgent need |
COMPLEXITY THINKING: A RIGHT-BRAIN ACTIVITY
“Welcome a certain amount of complexity and churn because it creates a chemical reaction that jars creative thinking.”
—COLLEEN YOUNG, VP AND DISTINGUISHED ANALYST AND IT ADVISER, GARTNER
Complexity thinking is very much a right-brain activity. Aucoin tells us that the tools for mastering complex projects come from using the right brain.9 While the left brain is dominant when applying conventional project management methods, Aucoin contends that the nature of projects today demands this new adaptive approach, which is predominantly a right-brain activity. In practice, Aucoin emphasizes that two brains are better than one: The project manager needs to develop a sense of when to apply these complementary approaches. Table 2-2 contrasts right-brain and left-brain processing styles.10
TABLE 2-2. Left-Brain versus Right-Brain Processing Styles
| Left Brain | Right Brain |
|---|---|
| Verbal communication, uses words | Uses visual, spatial, tactile communication |
| Relies on logic | Processes emotions, offers intuition |
| Prefers to execute known rules | Seeks new associations, creative thought |
| Operates sequentially | Is comfortable with disconnected |
| information | |
| Prefers predictable behavior | Is comfortable with some ambiguity |
| Executes known patterns | Learns new unknown patterns |
| Prefers what is explicit, concrete | Prefers abstract concepts, metaphors |
| Operates with complete information | Operates with incomplete information |
| Unable to make decisions independently | Comfortable with critical decision-making |
Aucoin goes on to say that left-brain techniques are perfectly appropriate for projects that are well-understood and predictable, particularly if the project team members have worked together in the past. But if the project involves new, unproven technologies or reengineered sophisticated business processes, and the team members have not worked together in the past, right-brain approaches will likely be needed as well. Aucoin concludes that it is important to truly understand the level and nature of complexity, and then to choose a more adaptive management approach for projects that involve the following:11
- Uncertainty, complexity, and urgency
- Expectations to achieve a reliable and predictable standard of performance, even in the midst of uncertainty and ambiguity
- An intricate array of people and groups.
Project managers everywhere are searching for ways to explore and understand the nature of the uncertainties and the causes of the complexity before making decisions about how to best manage a project. An understanding is emerging in the project management community that conventional project management practices are not enough when dealing with ambiguity, uncertainty, and the resulting complexities. To engage your right brain for increased agility, Aucoin gives us new insights and tools for succeeding on today’s aggressive projects. Doug DeCarlo provides a succinct description of Aucoin’s seven principles of right-brain project management.
DOUG DECARLO
Engaging Your Right Brain for Increased Agility12
In his landmark book Right-Brain Project Management: A Complementary Approach, author Mike Aucoin gives us new insights and tools for succeeding on today’s aggressive projects. Here is a summary of Mike’s Seven Principles of Right-Brain Project Management:
1. Find the compelling purpose
When a project has a compelling purpose, it unleashes motivation that otherwise would not be there. Great leaders and project managers are adept at identifying the hook that makes the project desirable. That is, they tap into the right brain. Tom Peters referred to this as the “WOW! Factor.” A compelling purpose galvanizes people while giving them a sense of meaning and importance.
2. Make sense of the project
Many of today’s contemporary projects are hard to figure out. Just like the ever-changing jigsaw puzzle, they are too complex for predominantly linear solutions. The role of the right brain is to discover patterns from fragmented and disjointed information. The left brain can then be enlisted to examine and test these patterns, hunches, and intuitive leaps for validity. For instance, when people are trying to get their minds around a new project or project deliverable, I often say to the group, “Think of this project as an animal, real or imagined. Draw a picture of what it would look like.” Then go around and have them explain their drawings. This right-brain activity gives people a better feel for the project when the logic and linear thinking of the left get stuck.
Sense-making, as Mike Aucoin points out, applies not only to understanding the end product (deliverable), but also to the task level and process for getting there. The tools include rich communication using scenarios, metaphors, and stories.
3. Experiment and adapt
You don’t manage the unknown the same way that you manage the known. When dealing with contemporary projects, by definition we often don’t know enough in advance to plan with certainty. No amount of planning will eliminate uncertainty (although many have not discovered this). The left brain wants to convince us that we can plan with accuracy and thereby eliminate the need to experiment; that is, to learn by trial and error. In the right-brain world, reality rules. Not the plan. And even though we have a plan, our practice is to de-plan and re-plan constantly.
4. Create the new reality
Creativity means coming up with a new idea. Innovation means applying that idea in a productive or profitable way. Here again the right and left brain do their dance: the right side brainstorms new ideas while the left brain is asked to patiently await judgment. Later, the left side kicks into action to evaluate the idea.
5. Exercise and fulfill trust
Complex, aggressive projects cannot be led solely from the top down. There are too many moving parts for any one person to keep track of and be able to make effective decisions. Instead, leadership is best decentralized if we are to foster creativity in problem-solving and timely decision-making. All this requires trust.
6. Hit the sweet spot
The sweet spot is a place of dynamic balance between the left and right brain. “Dynamic” because the spot is constantly changing. Being in the sweet spot is a by-product of the other six principles.
7. Leave a legacy
What will be said and how will people feel after the lights have been turned off and the project has been completed? All projects leave a legacy, even if it’s only in the minds of those who worked on the project. How do we want to remember this project? How do we want others to remember it? Will it be remembered with pride or with disdain? Envisioning a project’s success is a powerful activity for experiencing in advance the feeling of success. This is where the right brain creates magic. Creating a powerful vision (call it leaving a legacy in advance) for your project unleashes tremendous forces that propel the project forward. For instance, imagine going into your project having already experienced (in your own mind and body) the impact that your project will have on the team, the organization, the industry, or even humanity?
This is the province and power of the right brain: It doesn’t know the difference between what is imagined and what it true. It simply acts according to what is imagined and works in the background to bring the legacy into reality. The right brain provides the imagination. The left side provides the process and tools.
It’s a Balance
You hear people say of themselves that they are right-brained or they are left-brained. What they really mean is that they are predominantly left- or right-brain oriented. Today’s complex projects are predominantly right-brain ventures, but also rely on left-brain capabilities. And the balance will shift throughout the project. Agility is the ability to toggle back and forth between left- and right-brain activities. It’s a dance. And you don’t want to still be doing the cha cha when the music has changed to hip hop.
In the next chapter we introduce our Project Complexity Model and describe how best to use it as a tool to diagnose project complexity. In the remaining chapters of this book, we describe the appropriate management approaches for dealing with the various dimensions of complexity your project exhibits.
NOTES
1. Diann Daniel, “Complex IT Will Kill Your Business.” Online at http://www.cio.com/article/126350/Complex_IT_Will_Kill_Your_Business (accessed May 2008).
2. Roger Lewin and Birute Regine, “On the Edge in the World of Business,” afterword to Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos by Roger Lewin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 197.
3. Peter W. G. Morris, Key Issues in Project Leadership: Project Management Handbook (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), 3.
4. WordNet (a lexical database for the English language). Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University. Online at http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=reductionism (accessed January 2008).
5. Frances Storr, “That’s Another Fine Mess You’ve Got Me Into: The Value of Chaos in Organizational Analysis.” Online at http://www.trojanmice.com/index.htm. (accessed January 2008).
6. PMI and PMBOK are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute.
7. B. Michael Aucoin, Right-Brain Project Management: A Complementary Approach (Vienna, VA: Management Concepts, 2007), 115-123.
8. Ibid., 122.
9. Ibid., 12.
10. Ibid., 41. © 2007 by Management Concepts, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
11. Ibid., 41.
12. Doug DeCarlo, “Engaging Your Right Brain for Increased Agility” (July 2007). Online at http://www.gantthead.com/articles/articlesPrint.cfm?ID=237412 (accessed February 2008).