EPM5600 Project Management: Managing Projects in a Complex World

Introduction

The managing of complex project management is different from traditional project management. There are some of the uncertainties involved in the process of the outcome of the managing of the complex project (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011).  In order to deliver the right outcome in the complex project management the collaboration between the system engineer and the project manager is needed to be done. The collaboration will enable the decision making framework and the helps to add the value in the final project management (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011). The need of the collaboration between the  system engineer and the  project manager is to mitigate the effect of the uncertainty in the outcome of the complex project. The cooperation between the system engineer and the project manager is important as it will help to deliver the  coherent and consistence outcome which will focus on the identified opportunities  and managing all the stakeholders.

Discussion

Main  attribute of complex project management is the outcome of the project is uncertain. The management cannot remove the uncertainty completely however there are certain steps which can be taken in order to  mitigate  the effect of the uncertainty in the project.  The central argument of the project is the management o the complex project (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011). On order to do this there are various aspects of the complex project management has been discussed. It has been seen some of the changes during the development of the complex project which cannot be solved analytically (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011). In this situation the mitigation of the uncertain changes is needed to be considered.

The main aspect of the complex  project management is the presence of the wicked problems. There are certain characteristics of the wicked problems (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011). Some of these characteristics are the absence of the stopping of the happening of wicked problems, no trial and error method can be applied to solve these problems as they do not have ant set of feasible solutions (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011).  In order to deal with the wicked problems  certain steps are needed to be followed. Some of the steps regarding the managing of the wicked problems are-

• Understanding the issue
• Gathering the required information regarding the problem,
• Developing the solutions by refining the problem.

The  system engineers are concerned with the development of the functionality of the different modules of the project (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011). On the other hand the project manager is concerned about the development of the project through the life cycle of the project along with the delivery of the project in a right manner and within the right time (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011). In this case, the role of both the system engineer and project manager are important for the delivery of the right outcome.

It can said that while managing the complex project, the knowledge sharing between the project manager and the system engineer is important as it will help the to develop the right functionalities of the project along with the delivery of the project in time.

It can be concluded form the discussion that the managing of the complex project needs the management of the risks along with the implementation of the right functionality in the project. The project manager will ensure that the project has gone through the project life cycle in a proper way. The implementation of the functionality of the project is the concerned thing about the system engineer. It can be said that the proper management of the complex project can be done with the cooperation of both the project manager and the system engineer (Crawford & Hoffman, 2011). The responsibility of both the project manager and the system engineer are to mitigate the affect caused by the uncertainty of  project.

Conclusion

The discussion is about uncertainty of the outcome of complex project. The uncertainty plays an important role in the managing of  complex project and in this case, the management of  risk is important. In this case, the project manager plays an important role in the managing of the project. Apart from that it can be said that the system engineer plays an important role for the proper implementation of the different functionalities of the project. From the discussion it can be said that the cooperation of the system engineer and the project manager is important for the delivery of the right outcome of complex project and managing uncertainty of the project.  

References

Crawford, L., & Hoffman, E.(2011). Chapter 6: The Impact of Complexity on Project Cost and Schedule Estimates. In: T. Cooke-Davies. ed. Aspects of Complexity: Managing Projects in a Complex World. Atlanta, USA: Project Management Institute Book Service Center, 73-74.

Crawford, L., & Hoffman, E.(2011). Chapter 7: Beyond Competence: Developing Managers of Complex Projects. In: T. Cooke-Davies. ed. Aspects of Complexity: Managing Projects in a Complex World. Atlanta, USA: Project Management Institute Book Service Center, 87-98.

Crawford, L., & Hoffman, E.(2011). Chapter 3: Tools for Complex Projects. In: T. Cooke-Davies. ed. Aspects of Complexity: Managing Projects in a Complex World. Atlanta, USA: Project Management Institute Book Service Center, 29-30.

Crawford, L., & Hoffman, E.(2011). Chapter 2: Managing Projects With High Complexity. In: T. Cooke-Davies. ed. Aspects of Complexity: Managing Projects in a Complex World. Atlanta, USA: Project Management Institute Book Service Center, 15-17.

Crawford, L., & Hoffman, E.(2011). Chapter 5:Fear of Flying. In: T. Cooke-Davies. ed. Aspects of Complexity: Managing Projects in a Complex World. Atlanta, USA: Project Management Institute Book Service Center, 57-58.