by Lynda Bourne
The new CPM is ‘Complex Project Management’ and whilst most of the current project management tools and practices including risk management, scheduling and EVM remain important, they are not sufficient to successfully manage a complex project according to Stephen Hayes, from the Canberra based International Centre for Complex Project Management ICCPM.
ICCPM Ltd was established by Australian, UK and US government bodies and major defence industry corporations, and is now a substantial network of global corporate, government, academic and professional organisations committed to the better management of complex projects across all industry and government sectors focused on improving the success of complex projects.
Whilst all projects have a degree of complexity (see: Project size and categorisation) CPM is focused on the major projects undertaken in response to ill-defined and often mutually-incompatible stakeholder requirements and are subject to uncontrollable external influences and almost continuous change.
Successfully managing this type of project needs outcome focused leadership that is capable of developing context specific innovative approaches to issues backed by the tenacity to deliver ‘no matter what’!
The latest report facilitated by ICCPM in conjunction with Global Access Partners and a range of leading public and private sector organisations is entitled “Complex Project Management: Global Perspectives and the Strategic Agenda to 2025” (available from https://iccpm.com/).
This report has developed a framework for on-going research into CPM under six broad themes:
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Delivery leadership – the ability to navigate through uncertainty and ambiguity to achieve the desired outcome.
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Collaboration – working as one team to a mutually agreed goal and equitable reward (including operating the entire supply chain as a single entity).
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Benefits realisation – understanding and delivering through-life product value.
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Risk, opportunity and resilience – taking good risk, seizing emergent opportunity, and successfully responding to the unexpected.
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Culture communication and relationships – maximising the effectiveness of the human asset by understanding and responding to human behavioural need.
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Sustainability and education – continuous learning, maintaining currency in leadership capability and knowledge transfer across generational boundaries in order to sustain through-life capability.
Against each of these a basic set of policies and actions have been developed to define the future work and research agenda of ICCPM, its partners and academia. To this end ICCPM is working to develop a permanent, co-ordinated global specialist research agenda for CPM.
With support from the UK Cabinet Office, the Australian Government, universities including QUT and DAU, professional associations including IPMA and APM, and companies such as BAE Systems and Thales (to name but a few) this initiative may prove successful. Two glaring omissions from the list of supporters though are the AIPM and PMI – maybe this blog will trigger some action.
Certainly the emergence of stakeholders at the centre of complexity means stakeholder management and engagement will be a topic of increasing importance which is only to be encouraged.
