Skills for Navigating Complexity In Projects
Every year we reflect on the state of project management and every year we come to the same conclusion: things are getting more complex. Projects have more moving parts, a wider group of stakeholders, and they operate within an ever-increasing complex ecosystem of local and world events.
Forget VUCA, we’re now in what futurist Peter Hinssen calls ‘the never normal’.
What skills should teams be looking for in order to operate in this kind of world? PMI’s Navigating Complexity: A Practice Guide is quite an old read, but it is still a reasonable overview of the 6 skills that project managers should focus on in order to feel confident and competent at managing complex projects.
What are those skills that help in Navigating Complexity In Projects? We’re glad you asked! Let’s look at each of them.
1. Expertise
First up, expertise. The more complex the project, the more likely it is that a project leader with subject matter and domain knowledge is going to find it easier to get the work done. You don’t put a digital project manager in charge of a multi-billion dollar oil and gas project. (Equally, an oil and gas project manager would find it difficult to lead a complex digital project.)
Domain expertise in a relevant industry matters. That means making sure project teams have experience, and that you are training a pipeline of incoming staff with the right skills. The more specialist your area, the harder it is to ‘buy in’ contract resources with the required domain knowledge (although we’re pretty good at supplying expert project resources). Focus on staff retention and ensuring the culture of the organization is one that encourages people to stay for the long term.
Another factor is building organizational knowledge. Make sure your teams keep excellent records so that you can learn from the lessons of projects past. There’s a lot of valuable expertise buried in lessons learned documentation, audits and reviews!
2. Adaptability
Complex projects are never set in stone. While you might have a detailed spec and hundreds, if not thousands of lines in Primavera P6 Professional, you will face changes. That’s why adaptability is an important skill for project teams leading complex work. You need to be able to flex to new requirements and adapt to whatever is thrown at you, whether that’s rare plants being found on your construction site or a hike in the price of steel.
Adaptability is an attitude; a willingness to be flexible and positive about it. Be open to the idea that there might be alternative ways of doing the work and try to encourage a similar outlook in your colleagues.
3. Collaboration
It’s no surprise that collaboration is one of the top skills required for managing complex projects. We don’t deliver these alone. In large-scale initiatives, there are often sub-contractors, prime contractors and a host of suppliers and internal and external stakeholders who have to work effectively together.
The best project managers actively facilitate collaborative working. Whether that’s collaborative risk management planning, transparent reporting, open and honest conversations at work and real-time task management in your enterprise project management software, collaboration looks different at different points in the project.
Focus on helping people to work together and making it possible for different teams to share information through integrated software tools and good old-fashioned chats.
4. Leadership
PMI defines leadership as: “the ability to guide, motivate, and direct the team, which may include essential capabilities such as negotiation, resilience, communication, problem solving, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills.”
Phew! There’s a lot in there. And it’s not surprising that delivering a complex initiative successfully requires project leadership at all levels. From the most senior sponsors to the people delivering work packages, leadership is a way of working, not a job title.
5. Strategic and business management
Taking a ‘strategic and business management’ approach simply means leading a complex project through the lens of what it means for organizational value. Project management hasn’t been an exercise in ticking off tasks as complete for some time, and that’s never more the case than in difficult and ambiguous situations like complex projects.
Having a strategic overview of corporate goals will enable project teams to make the right decisions when it comes to what direction the project should take. This skill is all about delivering the best outcomes for customers and the organization as a whole. That requires project leaders to have a working knowledge of other business and management functions within the organization, such as marketing, operations, customer service and finance.
6. Technical project management skills
Navigating complexity in projects require professional project managers, so your technical skills are also a major factor in making sure that the work is delivered appropriately. From project controls to schedule management, risk analysis to earned value management, being technically competent at all the project management disciplines is essential if you want to close your projects on time and on budget.
This set of skills also covers being technically competent in the project management tools you use within the project environment. It’s really important that project team members at all levels and in all roles have the skills required to get the most out of the software they are using. Putting your planners through training in scheduling best practice guidelines, for example, will help the whole team have more chance of hitting deadlines and delivering the work on time.
The size and scale of the work contribute to the complexity of the project environment, but they aren’t the only determining factor by any means. Smaller projects can also be highly complex, and would also benefit from being led by a team skilled in these 6 areas.
Complexity in the project world is here to stay – and will probably only increase as time goes on. Equipping your team with the skills and tools to adapt to the changing project delivery environment is essential to maintain your competitive advantage well into the future.