The complexity cliff
1m 53s
Andy Murray, the Executive Director of the Major Projects Association, underscores the complexities inherent in handling major projects and offers insights on managing these complexities.
Andy advocates for two primary approaches:
Simplification: This involves stripping down a project to its essential elements. By reducing the project's scope, the number of components, and the number of organizations involved, the complexity can be decreased. Essentially, he suggests that projects should be kept as simple as possible to make them more manageable.
Raising Capability: Instead of merely simplifying projects, organizations can also choose to elevate their project management capability. This involves improving skills, processes, and methodologies so that the organization can handle more complex projects. Andy references Greg Elliot's sentiment of improving capability, emphasizing its significance.
He also highlights the importance for organizations to comprehend their current capability in relation to the complexity of their projects. It's crucial for them not to simply understand their projects in financial terms but to gauge the actual intricacy and challenges posed by each project.
Andy introduces the idea of P3 and M3 (presumably tools or metrics) with M3 being particularly notable because it provides an objective measure of an organization's project delivery capability.
In essence, Andy Murray underscores the balance between project complexity and organizational capability. He emphasizes that understanding this balance is fundamental to successful project delivery.