Complex Project Management

Complex Project Management

What is a complex project? One man's complex, large or advanced project is another man's piece of cake. To a person doing a two week project to install PCs on half a dozen desks and wire them up, a software development project involving 20 IT guys, 10 users and an external supplier and taking eight months could well seem like a complex project. But to the person managing a 300 person, 3 year project developing new enterprise-wide software applications and installing all the attendant hardware, our eight month project might hardly even register on the Richter Scale of complexity.

Managing Complex Projects

However, people about to manage 300 person, 3 year projects do not go on courses to learn how to manage projects. You would be rather worried if, having appointed someone to manage that project, they said: "hmm, I'd better go on a project management course then." For them, their project management training will have happened long ago. One hopes.

What makes a project complex?

Several factors might make a project qualify as being complex in the eyes of the person who must manage it:

• the project team will comprise more than a dozen or so people
• several distinct groups are involved: e.g. I.T., Marketing, HR, Logistics, Suppliers.
• similar projects have failed before
• the project manager has no experience of this type of project
• the project is amorphous, it seems to have no boundaries or limits
• a lot of money is involved
• project failure would imply significant business impact

Managing Complex Projects

In the ideal world a project with these characteristics will be managed by an experienced project manager. But sometimes a relative novice is thrown in at the deep end. He or she will need training in how to manage such projects. People finding themselves in this position might be:

• the company's I.T. Manager whose background is in I.T. Operations rather than project management.
• a business (i.e. non-IT) manager who is known to be a good manager and so is therefore given a project to manage. His boss may not appreciate that being a good manager does not necessarily mean knowing how to manage projects and certainly does not mean knowing how to manage I.T. projects.
• the job is given to an "experienced" project manager but his experience has been in running relatively small, simple projects.
• the project is primarily software development but the project manager has no experience of software development projects.
• the project manager has attended a project management methodology course but has not been trained to run the kind of project he or she now faces.
• an IT person is moving from a technical role to be a team leader in a large, complex project. Although not the overall project manager, he will need an understanding of how large projects are managed to be able to function in his role.

This Project Management Course will be just right for any of the above. The training course addresses how to pin down project scope, how to define roles and responsibilities and a host of other things that anyone managing a larger project will need to know.

The course has a bias towards software projects but is equally relevant for anyone managing any large or complex I.T. project. Participants do not need to have had any previous project management training. Indeed, not everyone who attends this course is yet involved in managing complex projects and they regard the aspects of the course that relate to larger projects as useful for their future when they will take on the challenge of managing more complex projects.

Project Management Training Course

Managing larger, more complex projects is covered in this Project Management Course.

Project Management Articles:

What Is Project Management?

Project Management in the Public Sector

Risk Management in I.T. Projects

The Tale of Three Project Managers

Towards a Project-Centric World

Quality Management in I.T. Projects

Project Management Proverbs, Saying, Laws and Jokes

So You Want To Be A Project Manager?

Project Management Books

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