The Impact of Complexity on Project Cost
PPMP 20014
Complex Project Management
Lecture 6 for Week 6
Prepared by:
Richard Egelstaff PMP, Ph.D (c), MBA (Adv), BA
Discipline Leader for Project Management,
School of Engineering & Technology
Higher Education Division
CQUniversity Rockhampton
Topics
• Where are we so far?
• Week’s Stuff
– Readings
– Study
– Reflections & Discussions
– Assignments
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Learning Outcomes
1. Explain the causes, environments, and properties of complex projects.
2. Identify different tools and techniques to aid a project manager manage complex projects.
3. Critically analyse whether different projects cases are complex projects.
4. Formulate, argue and defend a strategy that a project manager can apply to a complex project case study.
5. In a team analyse the root causes of failure with a number of sample complex project cases.
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PPMP20014
Complex Project Management
THE WEEK’S READINGS AND STUDY
Week 6 – Topic: The Impact of Complexity on Project Cost
and Schedule Estimates.
• Mandatory Readings:
– Aspects of Complexity: Managing Projects in a
Complex World (2011)
• Chapter 6 The Impact of Complexity on Project Cost and
Schedule Estimates by Dale Shermon
• Optional Readings
– none
• 5th Discussion Forum
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Chapter 6 The Impact of Complexity on Project Cost
and Schedule Estimates by Dale Shermon
• Introduction
• The Business Case
• Estimating and Parametrics
• Capability and Design
• Parametric Estimating
• Accuracy
• Historical Trend Analysis
• Case Study
• Summary
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Chapter 6 The Impact of Complexity on Project Cost
and Schedule Estimates by Dale Shermon
• The objective of the chapter is to provide advice for management and senior practitioners about how their projects’ complexity will influence their cost and schedule estimates.
• The conclusion is that parametrics has a place in the initial assessment of complex projects (although this is based on one case study).
• Parametric estimating provides an estimate of cost and schedule based upon a historical database of past projects, which have been normalized.
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5th Discussion Forum
• On page 61 of Terry Cooke-Davies book Carver and Maylor state that “The most common high-level categorizations of complexity were identified as:”
– Scale;
– Uncertainty;
– Pace;
– and Socio-political.
• Is there a relationship between each of these and “The four categories or dimensions, which are based on the source of complexity and may constitute a tool to assist stakeholders in identifying the nature of complexity”, namely:
– Structural complexity;
– Technical complexity;
– Directional complexity; and
– Temporal complexity.
• …that Remington and Pollack discuss on page 33-34.
• In other words is: – Scale a synonym for Structural complexity?
– Uncertainty a synonym for Technical complexity?
– Pace a synonym for Directional complexity?
– and Socio-political a synonym for Temporal complexity?
• Or are the respective authors discussing something more complex and subtle? Does then the concept of Structural and Dynamic Complexity alter your initial opinion as discussed by Carver and Maylor in Chapter 5?
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Assessment 2: Written Assessment 50%
• Your task is to consider:- – the causes, environments, and properties of complex projects;
– different tools and techniques to aid a project manager manage complex projects;
– the degree and nature of the projects cases discussed in the unit in the context of the theories and ideas related to complex projects.
• Then you must write an essay describing how you consider the points above are related to:- – projects with lots of parts and interconnections;
– projects that contain a great deal of uncertainty;
– project that are heavily time-constrained.
• You should illustrate your points by identifying what are the causes, theories, tools and techniques, that might be relevant to complex projects. You should use examples taken from case studies and examples discussed during the unit.
• 5,000 words due in Week 12
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Summary
• Where are we so far?
• Week’s Stuff
– Readings
– Study
– Reflections & Discussions
– Assignments
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