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(MRC SIG)
Working Group B: What principles are important in dealing with complexity?

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  • Davin Shellshear
    SIG Chair
      @davin-shellshear
      Post count: 161
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      Hi Group B,

      Attached are the notes from our meeting on 17th November. There are a lot of interesting comments arising from the meeting.

      Our current strategy is to keep talking around the subject and se if a new topic emerges.

      Andrew, you have referred to NAO’s definition of project failure as irrecoverable loss of benefit. Do you have the source for that? I have attached a piece from the Department of Finance on benefits, but could not find the bit from NAO.

      Cheers

      Davin

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      Tony Graham
      Participant
        @tony-graham
        Post count: 15
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        Robert

        Thanks

        The Liverpool John Moores Lecture a week Monday will be on “Organisational Safety Assessment” – I’ve had to follow their syllabus and teaching so I don’t confuse. I have put some outline slides together this morning and have shared them with the University for review. I will adlib ‘real life’ stories to stimulate the students. I probably can’t give them too much on complexity as I want to ensure they understand the basics in organisational safety assessment.

        I will work on the slides next week

        Tony Graham

        • This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Tony Graham.
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        Robert McMartin
        SIG Chair
          @rmcmartin
          Post count: 41
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          Hi Tony,

          This is a presentation that I did for the Predict User Group.  I have a whole manual written for Risk Management if you want.

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          Andrew Pyke
          Participant
            @mr-andrew-pyke
            Post count: 41
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            As discussed today, the Australian Risk Policy Institute did a great paper or two on RSKM limitations.  Here are my personal notes on it, FWIW:
            <ul class=”ul1″>
            <li class=”li1″>Risk Policy (Potentiality) > Risk Management (Probability) > Issue Management (Happening)
            <li class=”li1″>Think “vulnerability”, well before “risk”
            <li class=”li1″>About decisions <span class=”s2″>and</span> non-decisions
            <li class=”li1″>Include assessments of “patterns of thinking”
            <li class=”li1″>From organisation-centric risk, to network-centric risk
            <li class=”li1″>Strategic Risk = Vulnerability ^ Threat ^ Threat Actor (conjunction of all three)
            <li class=”li1″>Strategic Risk Policy should define where <i>Consequence</i> will be emphasised
            <li class=”li1″>KPI for the risk management system – how many issues being managed came from Risk Management, vs were missed
            <li class=”li1″>Personal costs (e.g. including non-decisions) can often exceed organisational costs, which needs to be considered
            <li class=”li1″>Outrage Management needs to consider behavioural science in how stakeholders respond to threats
            <li class=”li1″>“Risk Landscape” informs risk appetite and tolerance – recommend against defining “tolerance”
            <li class=”li1″>“New Civics” for how risk will be managed across the network
            <li class=”li1″>Measure risk in terms of magnitude of consequences, not probabilities
            <li class=”li1″>Compound Vulnerability – a domino effect of a new potential risk or vulnerability arising from an exposure created by an existing risk turned wicked problem.
            <li class=”li1″>Systemic Risks (which can become wicked problems, requiring reconstruction)
            <ul class=”ul1″>
            <li class=”li1″>Plural (legal/organisational) ownership
            <li class=”li1″>Jointly manage – formally and collaboratively
            <li class=”li1″>Single integrated processes

            Andrew Pyke
            Participant
              @mr-andrew-pyke
              Post count: 41
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              All, I recently had cause to analyse a complex project and deeply consider the Principal-Agent Problem and the Multiple-Principal Problem.  Thought I would share fwiw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem

              Andrew Pyke
              Participant
                @mr-andrew-pyke
                Post count: 41
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                We talked about lessons learned today.  I found this great resource that you might be interested in.  https://learninglegacy.crossrail.co.uk/

                Ian Mack
                Participant
                  @ian-mack
                  Post count: 118
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                  Thanks Rob and Davin for the two papers. A few thoughts after reading them in terms of what topics we might tackle next.

                  From the paper on ‘early warning signals’, I tried to extract what might be important subjects for us to consider tackling that we think are important, that have depth and that we could contribute meaningful thoughts on elements of solutions – my ‘take’ of some of the tougher nuts to crack:

                  – [As per Andrew’s comments at last meeting] key stakeholder uneasiness, outright disagreements or marketing of differing project narratives of events and/or their interpretation (including Politicians/political-actors) and I might add that all are affected by power dynamics

                  – Time pressure (‘when the stars line up, you go & do your best’)

                  – Weak risk treatment (includes inherent risk of project assumption validity in the face of change)

                  – Unclear expectations

                  – Cultural barriers (low risk threshold, group think, blame culture)

                  – Closed/biased mindset

                  – Competency shortfalls in project execution teams (including minimum levels to make good decisions when relying on contractors, and lived experience to provide ‘gut feel’,)

                  – Inept gatekeeper assessments (incompetent or not external enough or frequent enough as black-hat audits/reviews)

                  – Governance misplacing trust in competent-weak project execution teams

                  And from the paper regarding categorizing projects, two possible objectives came to mind:

                  – Noting the disorder in the middle of the Cynefin reality, how does one address the challenge of actually being able to pigeon-hole a category (complicated or complex) based on judgment of the degree of certainty of assessment versus over-confidence?

                  – What are the aspects that are critical to the necessary level of resilience to navigate complex projects (within the project execution team in particular)?

                  Some of these might appeal, for consideration Team.    Ian

                  Robert McMartin
                  SIG Chair
                    @rmcmartin
                    Post count: 41
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                    I came across this article today and thought I would share it.

                    Complicated and Complex are very different things! (danpronk.com)

                    Davin Shellshear
                    SIG Chair
                      @davin-shellshear
                      Post count: 161
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                      Hi Group B

                      I thought I might make a suggestion re our new topic.

                      I have noticed discussion from time to time regarding early signs of complexity/ spearing off into mud, or what are referred to as weak signals. If seems that this might be an interesting place to draw off our collective experiences. I have been reading a paper called ‘Identifying and Acting on Early Warning Signs in Complex Projects’ (see attached) which has probably influenced my thinking. Link:   https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/identifying-warning-signs-complex-projects-6259

                      If nothing else, this post might trigger alternative topics.

                      Cheers

                      Davin

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                      Davin Shellshear
                      SIG Chair
                        @davin-shellshear
                        Post count: 161
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                        CONGRATULATIONS to Group B

                        Attached is the final product of a year’s hard effort by Group B.

                        CONSIDERATIONS FOR ACHIEVING COMPLEX PROJECT DELIVERY

                        Thanks to all those who participated, and a particular thank you to the amazing work by Ian Mack in putting the document together progressively over the period, and undertaking the final editing process.

                        The document has been passed onto Colin Smith so ICCPM can consider how best to use this excellent outcome.

                        Once again, thank you all

                        Cheers

                        Davin Shellshear

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                        Davin Shellshear
                        SIG Chair
                          @davin-shellshear
                          Post count: 161
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                          Hi Group B

                          Attached are the notes from our meeting on 27th October. Apologies for the delay, I had uploaded the notes and took them down immediately when I realised I had to make some further edits. My bad!

                          So – please read and enjoy.

                          I remind members to post suggestions on potential new topics for the group. There was a lot of discussion around this in the meeting, so may I suggest reading the notes first.

                          Cheers

                          Davin

                           

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                          Lizzy Smith
                          Participant
                            @serviceworksmith-com-au
                            Post count: 5
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                            hi Ian and Davin

                            Yes Davin is correct I used his highlighted version to add my comments. I attach a word version with my comments if that is easier.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

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                            Davin Shellshear
                            SIG Chair
                              @davin-shellshear
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                              Hi Ian – my bad

                              I had highlighted areas related to people’s behaviours for my own benefit, and forgot to remove them on the first post. I subsequently uploaded a new version without the highlights.

                              Unfortunately Lizzy used the first version for her work, so please ignore the highlights and regard as the ravings of an old man.

                              Cheers

                              Davin

                              Ian Mack
                              Participant
                                @ian-mack
                                Post count: 118
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                                Hi Davin (and Lizzy) – I have accessed your document (Lizzy) and started the edits. There are places where sections are highlighted in yellow (at beginning of Annex A for example), but without any comment. Am I missing something?    Ian

                                Davin Shellshear
                                SIG Chair
                                  @davin-shellshear
                                  Post count: 161
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                                  Hi Ian,

                                  If you can identify what edits are needed, based on your review of Lizzy’s comments and other matters that have emerged since the formatted version was created,  I can update the formatted version accordingly.

                                  Cheers

                                  Davin

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