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Stefan Morcov
4 Nov. 2022
KU Leuven
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Projects and IT products become more and more
challenging, while more and more rewarding
31% of projects are canceled
52% of projects cost 189% the original estimate
16.2% are on-time/on-budget
(Standish Group, 1995)
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Some projects are particularly complex -> huge cost
Arianne 5 –exploded in 1996, due to an erroneous data conversion from 64-bit floating
point value to 16-bit signed integer, because of reusing legacy software from Arianne 4
- 370 mil Eur loss.
X-ray machine –Therac-25, 11 machines in 1982, 6 accidents, 3 deaths
Schengen Information System (SIS II) launched in 2013 - 6 years late, 8 times more
expensive than the initial estimate, at a final cost of €500 million
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So, why do we do complex (engineering) projects?
Complexity works !
It delivers value & benefits.
Complex projects
create complex products
for complex markets
in complex organizations
with complex processes.
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SMS
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Pls. interrupt me
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Innovation occurs at the edge of chaos
Systems must be taken outside equilibrium to innovate
Systems acquire complexity to evolve & survive
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Tester
QA
Analyst
Domain expert
UI/graphics
UX/usabilty
Architect
Project manager
Sys admin
DBA
Technical leader
Support
n*(n-1)/2
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A temporary endeavor to create a unique product/service
(PMBoK)
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“Difficult to understand, foresee and keep under control,
even when given reasonably complete information about
its components.”
Structural complexity (complicatedness)
Dynamic complexity
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Complex
Difficult
Large
Complicated
Unmanageable
Fashionable
Fancy
Baroque
Consisting of
many
varied
interrelated parts
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Ambiguity, uncertainty, propagation, chaos
Emergence, adaptiveness
Nonlinearity, complex feedback loops
Significant impact of small factors and rare events
Lorenz’s Butterfly Effect
◦Ray Bradbury: A Sound of Thunder, 1952
◦Lorenz: Deterministic NonPeriodic Flow, 1963
Black Swan (Taleb, 2007)
◦Fractals & long-tail vs. Gaussian distributions
Vulnerability management = Resistance + Resilience
Anti-fragility (Taleb 2012)
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Framework contracts for the specification, development and
maintenance of IT systems in the field of:
◦Fiscality - FITSDEV –40 mil
◦Customs - CUSTDEV - 140 mil
◦Joint: SOFT-DEV (starting 2020)
FwC for operation of applications and infrastructure:
◦ITSM-operations = support and operations for central apps, 177 mil
◦ITSM-Trans-european =support to member states, 35 mil
◦ITSM-integration = mostly QA and consultancy, 26 mil
eLearning, capacity building and communication - BTrain, 10 mil
Middleware & communication infrastructure - CCN, 55 mil.
Network services - CCN/WAN2, 10 mil
Intramuros support –TIMEA, 42 mil
Quality assurance –QA, 35 mil
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Stakeholders Map –Target Audience:
EPALE is the pan-European,
multilingual, open membership
community of adult learning
professionals and policymakers
European Commission project
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Solution:
Collaboration and eLearning portal, mobile app.
(Drupal, Open Europa, Moodle, AWS)
Content, hosting, maintenance, operation
Management of the EU Central Support Service
Coordination of 38 National Support Service centers,
community management
Communication, social media,
large-scale events
Stakeholders:
5 Directorates and Agencies of EC
National authorities
Consortium of 2 partners
Various subcontractors
Central Support team
38 National teams
4000 participants attended the
Annual Conference 2020
1. Know the basics: rules, standards, procedures
(Project) management / engineering school
2. Know when to ignore rules / cut corners
Experience
3. Make new rules
Create knowledge
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Systematic project management frameworks
Iron-triangle
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Invoicing, cost,
profit
Project objectives
Statement of work
Deliverables
Features, requirements,
stakeholder needs& interests
Success criteria
Planning
When?
How much?
What?
(and what
not
)
Scope
Any system does something right –not necessarily what it was
supposed to do.
◦Objectives
◦Requirements
◦Stakeholder management
◦Configuration management
◦Change management
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Tool: Stakeholder map
◦Who impacts the project: name, title, role
◦How: objectives/interests
◦Contact points
◦Communication channels/frequency
Monitor for change !
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Risk management
Communication management
Leadership, people, motivation
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Tool: risk register
1. Identify risks & opportunities
2. Analyze (qualitative / quantitative)
3. Plan mitigation strategies
◦
Reduce, avoid, transfer, accept (risks)
◦
Exploit, create, share, accept (opportunities)
4. Monitor & manage
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(Marle&Vidal 2016)
Methodologies & frameworks
Project management: PMBoK, IPMA, Prince2, PM2@EC, RUP@EC
Quality: ISO 9001, Total Quality Management, CMM, Six-sigma
IT Service Management & Governance: ITIL, COBIT
Software development: Waterfall, incremental, RUP, Agile, SCRUM, FDD, XP,
RAD, prototyping, OOAD, UML, dependency modelling, traceability matrices
IT architecture: TOGAF
Software estimation: FPA, COCOMO
Testing: ISTQB
Security: ISO 27001/2, CRISC, CISM, CISA, CISSP
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Tools for analysis and decision
1. Decomposition (X-BS, modularization, COTS components, reusability)
2. Dependency modelling
3. Causal-loop, systems thinking
4. Brainstorming
5. Mind-maps
6. SWOT / PEST / STEEP
7. Checklists
8. Decision trees
9. Decision matrices
10. Cost-benefit
11. Cause-effect / Ishikawa
12. Paretto (the 80-20 rule)
13. Delphi
14. Focus groups
15. Toyota way
16. 5 why-s
17. WWWWWH
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Tools for analysis and decision
1. Decomposition (X-BS, modularization, COTS components, reusability)
2. Dependency modelling
3. Causal-loop, systems thinking
4. Brainstorming
5. Mind-maps
6. SWOT / PEST / STEEP
7. Checklists
8. Decision trees
9. Decision matrices
10. Cost-benefit
11. Cause-effect / Ishikawa
12. Paretto (the 80-20 rule)
13. Delphi
14. Focus groups
15. Toyota way
16. 5 why-s
17. WWWWWH
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Survey
How many of these tools do you know?
a) More than 10
b) More than 5
c) Less than 3
Which is the best
project management
software tool?
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Which is the best project management software tool?
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1. Excel / sheets
2. Word / docs
3. Jira
4. Confluence
5. Miro
6. Monday
7. MS Project
8. Primavera
9. ….
Email, collaboration, file-sharing - Google Drive, Docs, Sheets
Development/test environment –AWS cloud
Configuration management, CI/CD –Github
Planning and tracking –Jira, Kanban
Knowledge management - Confluence
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Project success
vs.
project management performance
Traditional scope & QA management define success as
“compliance with agreed written specifications”
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Agile management: iterative, wave-crest planning /scope analysis
Manage a complex project as a program
Management fallacies
Mongolian horde concept
First rule of cyclism
We can fill-in the details later
The 95%-ready paradox
The KLOC paradox
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Agile management: iterative, wave-crest planning /scope analysis
Manage a complex project as a program
Management fallacies
Mongolian horde concept: just throw-in more people
First rule of cyclism: always run up-hill and against-wind
We can fill-in the details later
The 95%-ready paradox: 95% ready, 97%, 99, 99…, 99…….
The KLOC paradox: measuring software code quantity vs. quality
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In theory, practice is simple; but in practice, it’s not.
Clear theoretical solutions are applicable only to perfectly spherical cows in a
vacuum under zero-gravity conditions.
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Mix. different contract types (fix-price, time&means, mixed)
Mix different suppliers
Informal communication. Teamwork
The right team. Balance people vs. Structure
Management vs. leadership
Do not oversimplify. Manage complexity &risk
A well-managed project is not a project without a mess, but a project with a
well-managed mess
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= consisting of many
varied
interrelated parts
Tools for managing structural complexity:
◦Complexity measurement
◦Configuration management
◦Change management
◦Dependency (DSM, DMM, MDM) & traceability matrix (requirements, stakeholders,
changes)
(Maurer 2017) (Marle&Vidal 2016)
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0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
Time/cost
Team size
Team composition and
performance
Urgency/flexibility of
cost/time/scope
Problem/solution
clarity
Requirements volatility
and risk
Strategic/political
sensitivity/importanc…
Level of organizational
change
Level of commercial
change
Risk, external
constraints and…
Level of IT complexity
Average
Hass complexity scale - example
Prj 1
Prj 2
Prj 3
Prj 4
Prj 5
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Hass tool
Cifter tool
Ambiguity, uncertainty, propagation, chaos
Nonlinearity, complex feedback loops and significant impact of small factors
Lorenz’s Butterfly Effect
◦Lorenz: Deterministic non periodic flow, 1963
◦~Ray Bradbury short story, 1952
Nicolas Taleb: Black Swan (2007)
◦Fractals & long-tail vs. Gaussian distributions
Vulnerability management = Resistance + Resilience
Anti-fragility (Taleb 2012)
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Systems (projects, products) are:
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1.
Simple
Managing ≈ no effort
1.
Complicated
(≈ structural complexity)
Managing ∝ effort
1.
Complex
Managing ∝ effort times x
1.
Really complex
Managing ∝ exponential to effort
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Management effort: Low
Exponential
Aristotle Euclid
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Positive complexity Appropriate complexity Negative complexity
Benefits > Cost Benefits ≃ Cost Benefits < Cost
Desirable Accepted Undesirable
Innovation & creativity
Additional features
Large budget
Component reusability
Political priority
Integration/compliance with new
technologies
Unclear objectives –scope agility
Many varied technologies
Many interrelated components.
Unclear objectives.
New technology.
Large number and variety of stakeholders
Response strategy
Complexity Effect
Positive Appropriate Negative
Create, enhance x
Use (exploit) x
Accept / ignore x x x
Simplify / reduce x
Avoid / eliminate x
Deploying additional tools is expensive
More processes = more centralization
=> less innovation, less flexibility,
increased vulnerability
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Innovation occurs at the edge of chaos
A system must be taken outside the equilibrium state in order to
innovate
Systems must acquire complexity in order to remain viable
The law of requisite complexity
Positive/appropriate complexity
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Baccarini, D. (1996). The concept of project complexity, a review. International Journal of Project Management,
14(4), 201-204
Benbya, H., & McKelvey, B. (2006). Using coevolutionary and complexity theories to improve IS alignment: a
multi-level approach. Journal of Information Technology, 21, 284-298
Lorenz, E. N. (1963, March). Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 20(2), 130–
141
Marle, F., & Vidal, L.-A. (2016). Managing Complex, High Risk Projects - A Guide to Basic and Advanced Project
Management. London: Springer-Verlag
Maurer, M. (2017). Complexity Management in Engineering Design –a Primer. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer
PMI. (2017). PMBOK Guide
Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007, Nov.). A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business
Review, 85(11), 68-76
Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House
Taleb, N. N. (2012). Antifragile: things that gain from disorder. New York: Random House
Wieringa, R. J. (2014). Design Science Methodology for Information Systems and Software Engineering. Berlin,
Heidelberg: Springer
Pictures under Creative Commons / Wikimedia.org
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1. Define problem
2. Collect (ALL) ideas
3. Categorize ideas (e.g. card-sorting)
4. Prioritize ideas (e.g. by voting)
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“divide et impera”
X-BS (Breakdown Structure)
◦Work-BS, Risk-BS, Cost-BS, …
Standardization, modularization & reusability of
designs/components (see Ford)
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SWOT
◦Internal: Strengths, Weaknesses
◦External: Opportunities, Threats
PEST - Political, Economical, Social, Tehnological
STEEP - Social, Tehnological, Economical, Ecological, Political
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Design Structure Matrix (DSM) –
between same components
Dependency Mapping Matrix (DMM)
–between different
components
Multiple-Domain Matrix (MDM)
(Maurer 2017)
DSM DMM MDM
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(Sheard, Sarah A, and Ali Mostashari. 2010)
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Large & very large
Long decision cycle - management
by committee
Critical projects –political agenda
Complex stakeholder map
Varied political interests –formal
and informal
Changing political priorities
◦Some organisations are very
vulnerable to political change, some
are more stable
Very complex regulations
Complex / complicated
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Project
complexity
Market
complexity
Product
complexity
Process
complexity
Organisation
complexity
11/3/2022
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Learning
Teaching
Evaluation
Testing
Monitoring
School
management
System
management
Content
Collaboration
Change
Management
Training
Students
Grades
Attendance
Scheduling
Activities
Results
History
Resources
Schools
Curricula
Personnel
Teacher’s
management
Employment
Management of
resources
Students
Management
of national
examinations
Collaboration
Federated content
Information
Analysis
Decision
Project preparation stage: 1-2 years
Bid-proposal stage: 2-3 months
Evaluation stage: 2-4 months
◦Rarely - very long
Sign contract, take-over, ramp-up: 3-7 months
Project execution: 2-10+ years
Workarounds:
◦Framework contracts
◦Programs instead of projects
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Fix-price (incl. service-mode, managed services,
SaaS)
◦Responsibility & risk @ supplier
Time & means (dedicated team, sourcing...)
◦Responsibility & risk @ buyer
Mixed models
◦Quoted Time & Means
◦Mixed framework contracts
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Work expands so as to fill the time available for its
completion (Parkinson's law)
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
into account this law (Hofstadter's Law)
The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon
whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in
performance
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Work expands so as to fill the time available
◦
This law is true for both private & public organizations
Case-studies: UK Ministry of Naval Forces, UK Colonial Office
◦The staff rose by 5–7% per year irrespective of any variation in the
amount of work (if any) to be done
Driving forces :
◦An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals
◦Officials make work for each other
Which are the reverse driving forces ?
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Comitology
: how committees, government cabinets, and
other such bodies are created and eventually grow irrelevant
Larger organisation structure = less power
Large bureaucracies tend to diffuse responsibility and
decision
◦Complex and long procedures for evaluation and career
plan
➢Low incentive for taking personal responsibility: limited
benefits vs. high risk
➢Stable, conservative organizations, averse to risk
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Centralized vs descentralized administrations
Language (e.g. European English)
Etiquette, small-talk, salutation, titles
Negotiation styles
Digitization, technology, remote collaboration
Covid / social distancing
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+ European R&D is mostly public-funded
◦National & EC funds
◦Grants, universities, PhDs, research institutes
◦Horizon, EIC/SME instrument, FTI, FET
- Adoption of new technology is slow
◦~ 2-5 years behind private sector
◦Long-cycle, large programs
◦Low risk
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