DISCUSSION FORUM

In Chapter: Beyond Competence: Developing Managers of Complex Projects, Lynn Crawford and Ed Hoffman (in the book by Terry Cooke-Davies) discuss the means of developing reflective practitioners (p. 92).

In that section they state:

Experience and education cannot be directly equated to each other. For some experiences are mis-educative. Any experience is mis-educative that has the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of further experience." For learning from experience to be effective, the learner must be self-aware and have a degree of humility that may be missing in some practitioners especially if they believe and have certifications to attest to their "competence" as project managers.

Do you agree with Crawford and Hoffman?

Please expand on your thoughts regarding the world of project complexities and whether they contain inherent characteristics that are mis-educative?

Is it not the wickedness discussed by Lynelle Briggs and that "project management training that reduces all the tasks of a project manager to a simple and straightforward rational, linear, and deterministic set of predefined processes and activities, tends to increase the challenges of systemicity by developing project personnel who are not on the lookout for the project's interconnectedness" (Chapter 1 p. 6)?

Which, as a consequence means that the competence approach will in fact increase the complexities of a project rather than reducing them in an orderly manner!

Part 1

In Chapter 8 Human Behavior and Complexity of his book, Terry Cooke-Davies identifies that we often "see what we want to see" (p. 109).

Are there examples of projects or situations that you have experienced this phenomenon?

What techniques do you think might be able to overcome this "deliberate deception" and "network of lies and deceptions" that might exist in human society and project management in particular?

Part 2

In Chapter 9 Controlling Chaos? The Value and the Challenges of Applying Complexity Theory to Project Management Kaye Remington and Roxanne Zolin write...

- "Given that it is theoretically impossible to predict outcomes in a complex system with any kind of accuracy, we must ask the question whether it is possible to provide some kind of forewarning to practitioners and key stakeholders. Ideally, a forewarning system could alert key stakeholders to the fact that they are not dealing with a run- of-the-mill project but something that requires extraordinary management" (p. 126-127).

Are there ways that feedback can be implemented in the project, program and portfolio environment?

Part 3

In Chapter 10 Systems Thinking and the Systems Movement Peter Checkland and Terry Williams describe Systems Dynamics (p. 142-145).

One of the essentials characteristics or techniques of Systems Dynamics is the development of models. However, how can models be developed to reflect a network of human lies and deceptions (p. 112)?

Part 4

In Chapter 11 Systems Engineering and Project Management by Andrew Daw, Professor Daw advocates that the systems engineer and the project manager establish a partnership of equals (p. 166).

He then goes on to state that this partnership will...

"enable the appropriate emphasis and focus to be placed upon the necessary techniques and activities but with explicit concentration upon the support to decision making in the face of uncertainty, ambiguity, and incomplete knowledge and information".
This sounds marvelous!

Do you think it is marvelous and will this be a solution to the world of complex project management?

No Of Words: 500-600 per Forum