Working Group B: What principles are important in dealing with complexity?

[Ian Mack]

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Thank you Davin for this and all the other painstaking transcriptions of our  rambling thoughts. To you and the whole team, very best wishes to all and more broadly to out troubled world in 2022. (Stay safe and healthy).  Ian

[Davin Shellshear]

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Hi Group B,

Attached are the transcripts from our last Group B meeting (16 December 21).

There is a wealth of material emerging from this meeting. Could group members please go through the transcript and think about the topic suggestions. Can we come to the next meeting on 27th February  having reviewed these notes and think about where you would like the topic to go. We can settle on the wording for the topic at the beginning of the next meeting.

Happy reading and all the best for 2022.

Warm Regards

Davin Shellshear

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[Stephen Grey]

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I am sorry I missed the event when this topic was first raised and can’t manage the meeting tomorrow so I have jotted down a few thoughts here – just thoughts, not firm positions

Not having been in the initial discussion, I might be misinterpreting the intention

1. I am not clear if the emphasis is on (a) the worldview/mindset/expectations or on (b) establishing worldview/mindset/expectations within people concerned with complex projects. The former seems to me to be descriptive and generally normative. The latter is presumably an action or set of actions being taken to convey or encourage the characteristics thought useful for the people being addressed.
2. Are we looking at this as something being done to those people, by someone like an advisor, facilitator or manager, or a self development process people undertake for themselves?
3. The answer might be all the above. I am more keen on something that has an action component than being simply descriptive though,

As I said, I might just be missing the point.

I think my next chance to join you live will be in 2022 so best wishes for the festive season and let us hope omicron doesn’t wreak havoc on us.

Steve

[Ian Mack]

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Team – Having considering many definitions (e.g. mindset, worldview, principles, perspectives, expectations, considerations) and as the wayward person who proposed the initial topic, I would offer the following adjustment to the statement of our next objective: “What considerations are critical when establishing the expectations of executives, stakeholders and those tasked with implementing at the coalface that will help them deal with the unique aspects of complex projects?”

For consideration and discussion this week – Ian

[Stephen Grey]

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Ian

I think we are on the same page

Just a matter of what you call advice

To give a facile example, it is probably useful to advise someone facing complexity not to that relationships with which they deal now will have the same issues or even be the same relationships in 3 years time and to contemplate what that might mean for their management task

Steve

ALL – I apologise in advance but I can’t make the meeting this week as my wife needs to be taken to an appointment – she is too unwell to drive

[Ian Mack]

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Hi Stephen – I am not big on offering advice as everything is so context-specific that many view their context as different and dismiss offered ‘advice’? perhaps we could us instead employ  “… offered as potentially useful perspectives”? And thanks for the radio link, again context helped!

Team – I look forward to chatting next week and suggest that everyone try to bring at least one such perspective (principle or attribute for mindset) to get the discussion rolling.     Ian

[Stephen Grey]

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The top line for Working Group B discussion seems to have disappeared from the forum

 

WGA is there but I had to find this by searching them opening an old post

[Stephen Grey]

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Having raised the teddy bear ploy in the most recent meeting, I tried to post the link for the original story but it seems to have disappeared into cyberspace so, just for the same of completeness, this short radio interview deals with how to help people cope with emergent processes in a workshop using metaphorical teddy bears.
<p class=”ltr”>https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/this-working-life/harnessing-ambiguity/8010228</p>

[Stephen Grey]

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Ian

This makes a lot of sense and is all in the spirit of complex systems emergence :)

Would you consider replacing “captured in a guidebook” with “offered as advice” to focus more on the content than the form in which it is delivered?

Steve

[Ian Mack]

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Team – A lot of good stuff from our first exploration, including some new and useful insights to answering our last WG question. And thanks to Davin for his meticulous work to capture all we said!

I took away that we could amplify/modify the draft proposed question to read as follows: (a bit long) “What attributes of mindset and set of shaping principles might be captured in a guidebook for executives, stakeholders and those implementing the project at the coalface to set expectations that will help them deal with the unique aspects of complex projects?”

This would allow us to develop two lists – one on attributes of an enabling mindset (some of which were in the CPM Leadership Competency Standard) and the other on the principles in all aspects of CPM that we have seen work.

Last point – Davin, perhaps we can get our SIG WG website template to reflect our new proposed topic soon?

Ian

[Davin Shellshear]

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Hi Group B

Attached is the transcript from out last meeting – No 12.

We are now powering ahead with our new topic ‘<b><i>What mindset and set of principles are needed to deal with complexity?'</i></b>

Happy reading

Davin Shellshear

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[Stephen Grey]

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File too large

 

It can be found here https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/ipcc-processes-questioned/13618338 and downloaded if you wish

[Stephen Grey]

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Listening to the ABC Science Show at the weekend, I heard the piece in the attached audio file

It concerns the challenge of engaging policy makers and decision makers with climate science

I was struck by the close parallel between the forces at work in that discourse and the challenges we are addressing – getting decision makers to understand and act on the implications of complex emergent behaviour in projects

It doesn’t offer any solutions but sometimes seeing a problem from slightly different standpoints can trigger a useful insight

It does raise the matter of emerging issues, changes that have not yet breached a critical threshold or become so large as to raise alarm, and whether we might do something to highlight and communicate those, possibly drawing on the work of WGA

The thread of connections that appeared to me is:

• Discourse and reporting are framed in terms of simple numbers
• Reality is not as straightforward as that
• Developments in understanding the system are not being acknowledged
• There is not a single threshold number at which action is required or damage manifests itself, it can come in stages or waves
• Simple numbers and targets are easy to explain to decision makers but problems will be felt before these numbers are bad enough to trigger action
• Using simplistic frameworks to understand a system is a serious risk in itself
• Systems in dynamic equilibrium respond non-linearly to changes in their environment and their internal dynamics
• Insufficient emphasis on non-linear behaviour
• Known issues are not being communicated because it is too hard
• Drawing attention to such matters makes you no friends
• Vested interests (e.g. managers with 3-5 year horizons and bonuses)
• Tendency to populate advisory groups with people aligned to historical approach and expectations so insights are stifled
• Entrained advisors act as spoilers for new ideas
• Knowledge exists that is not being passed up the chain or used at working level

I offer this as a prompt only but I was fascinated by the close parallel

[Stephen Grey]

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Thanks Ian

We are cultivating a rich body of ideas

Steve

[Ian Mack]

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Team – I reviewed the list of proposed topics. I do not want to come across as “Pollyanna’ish”, but I would offer that they have cumulatively provided a useful shaping or the mindset question and initial problem statement as a point of departure. I have tried to demonstrate this in what follows:

• The mindset appreciation (and hopefully acceptance) is important as part of risk mitigation for the project by building trust among decision-makers, and must also include the principals around risk treatment for those inherent risks of navigating complexity (e.g. the attributes of organisational risk maturity as for example indicated by the ongoing risk assessment of the evolving views of stakeholders often driven by their frequent turnover, the importance of addressing aggregate and inter-dependent risks)
• Such a mindset is part of cultivating future complex project navigators
• The mindset should highlight aspects of good governance (iaw ISO 34000.2021) that are more essential for complex projects
• Such a mindset should address some of the unique communications challenges of complex projects (e.g. the soft touch to briefing internally and externally in a VUCA environment with little firm knowledge or answers amid multiple competing perspectives waiting to fill the void when facts are not presented – including the value of polarity management techniques)
• Such a mindset must cover the organisational level of risk maturity to navigate complexity including such things as organisational risk tolerance for complex projects (better defined in complexity as a ‘healthy appetite’ for risk), unique aspects of complex project gate reviews (e.g. addressing optimism bias), addressing known-unknown risks (e.g. climate change and the evolving ‘greening’ requirements – noting that many such projects last 5-10 years or more before close out) and addressing emerging unknown-unknown risks (a process for reducing these to known-unknowns [broader barriers and scenario planning] and for dealing with their emergence when never predicted)

For consideration as we approach the next meeting – Ian

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