Considerations Regarding Transitions in Complex Projects
a Managing Risk in Complexity Special Interest Group (MRC SIG) report
It will come as no surprise that projects strive to be in constant motion from the time they are launched until outcomes are achieved and senior governance members agree to terminate the project. It is also well known that all project management professional bodies advocate lifecycle frameworks including project phases and process considerations to transition from one phase to the next (Endnote 1). The project enterprise’s leadership understandably focuses considerable attention on these inter-phase transitions, ensuring that they are both effective in delivering the desired changes and efficient in terms of maximising seamlessness to maintain project momentum.
Within each of these major project phases, most projects (if not all) experience additional planned and unplanned events which trigger a need for change by going through some form of transition activity. Importantly, complex projects exhibit significantly larger numbers of emerging risks amidst what is already a challenging network of interdependent activities involving many stakeholders. Therefore, complex projects need to carefully consider the particular challenge of identifying both potential transition requirements and responding to unexpected in-train transitions as early as possible to enable an appropriate response.
Complex projects are always by their nature exceptionally busy, as are all the members of the execution team. Amidst the normally high level of ‘noise’ in the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) globally interconnected world of business now and in the future, it is often difficult to sense the early and weak signals that indicate the initiation of transition processes that can be detrimental to project delivery. Interestingly, many of the major issues that have detrimentally affected project success are problems that went unnoticed, were underestimated or dismissed until a significant change became obvious which triggered a project crisis. One documented case is provided in Annex A.
Based on experience with harmful transitions, a risk-focused Working Group of the International Centre for Complex Project Management (ICCPM) set out to explore considerations when answering the following question:
How might practitioners mitigate the potential risks inherent in transitions in complex projects with the aim of preserving project momentum in as seamless a way as possible?
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