Last week we discussed the second part of Terry Cooke-Davies' book Aspects of Complexity Part 2 - With Researchers and Students in Mind. This week we're going to put our Researchers hat on and will think about the last two criterion of the essay assignment: -

Incorporation of project cases as illustration and arguments? (10%)5. A critical review and integration of relevant academic and professional literature taken from CQU Project Management PPMPnnnnn units in this programme

In the second part of the essay you need to think of project cases as examples that allow you to expand on, what you thought about last week, regarding the theories and ideas, causes, environment, properties, tools and techniques of complex projects. For example, we have used the BP Deepwater Horizon accident and catastrophe as an illustration of a complex project.

There have been hundreds of thousands of words written about this accident, but fundamentally what might have been a dangerous project was made into a complex project by the way that BP and it's contractors treated the project. Let me expand on this thought for you: -

The fundamental concept of project management means that an organisation must be thinking and organising as a system. If not then project management doesn't work because there is no structure and the players in the organisation will move the goal posts and do other things.

The same premise is true of the structure in the organisation, for example rigid hierarchies will constrain project management because people will have a responsibility upwards and not to the needs of the project. The culture of an organisation has a lot to do with encouraging or discouraging this.

A sloppy, careless, and impatient culture will mean that people get away with things and don't work within the constraints of the system. Obviously in a project, managing risk is axiomatic, but being serious about risk is a different dimension of risk management. Think what BP did or didn't do with Deepwater Horizon?

They (and their contractors) were not serious about the risks. Had they applied rigorous engineering principles to the risk of moving the rig then all manner of alarm bells would have rung! However, taking an engineering approach to risk means using templates, probability models, formulas, and simulation.

This means being serious about risk management, but because of the overruns associated with the project this was not what BP wanted, and so what was a dangerous project became a complex project. In the chapters 2 to 7 of Terry Cooke-Davies book you'll find lots of elements that then describe what constitutes complex projects that can be applied to DB Deepwater Horizon.

BP Deepwater Horizon is only one example. What other ones have you seen in the PPMP units? Also, what other text books, journals, standards, and so on have you read that might help you think and explain complex projects?

In not more than 1,000 words make your explanation by typing rich text directly into the editor field for your submission. The text area will be available in this study week from 12am Monday until 12am the following Monday. Submissions made after that time will receive a 5% penalty for each day late.

Please make sure that you meet the deadlines set for this assignment. Extensions will only be allowed by using the CQU Assessment Extension Request link in this Moodle web page.

You must use the correct academic communication method to write your explanation, including in-text references and a reference list. See the Academic Learning Centre Moodle web page in the Moodle Support section on this web page if you do not know how to do this. The 1,000 word limit includes all the text you enter, which also consists of in-text references and the reference list.