Laura puts a definition of complexity on the screen:

“Complexity is often tied to the concept of a system – a set of elements which have relationships among them.  Complexity expresses a condition of numerous elements in a system and numerous forms of relationships among these elements.”

She defines a complex project as having:

• A number of complicated inter-relationships
• Interdependencies
• A number of unknowns
• A degree of uncertainty

Laura’s Microsoft Project plan has 7000 lines and a duration of 5 years – and that’s just the IT stuff.  Nothing on there (or in that timeline) relates to the actual building of the hospital.  In order to even get a handle on what that meant she had to set up an IT project management office.  They have had to build an approach to risk, quality and set up operating models where there were previously none.  However, she’s “still not satisifed” with the tools that the PMO has in hand.  They use Microsoft Project for scheduling and Outlook.  “They are not helping us necessarily cut down on complexity but at least it is helping us keep things under control.”

The IT PMO is now 12 people, and Laura talks about the difficulty of getting the right knowledge and expertise. “You need to think about staff motivation if you want your team to stay with you for four or five years, until you go live” she says.   She hopes that some of the technical team will stay on after go live as well.

Staff motivation doesn’t seem to be a problem: there is a whole host of new and exciting technologies to play with.  The IT inventory at the hospital-to-be stretches to 250 applications.  The hardware includes all the usual network and infrastructure stuff, plus some more modern gadgets: hand-held devices, RFID, bar coding, and a full suite of patient entertainment systems.  Then there is all the clinical equipment.

Clinical workflow is also a consideration.  The hospital needs processes to handle inpatients, outpatients and clinical order forms.  There’s a double loop feedback system in place to ensure that the requirements are fit for purpose.  All the IT systems are going through two cycles of integration testing because a clear data flow is so important for patient safety.

It all sounds really modern and exciting, but the hospital opening is several years off and medical technology evolves at a rapid pace.  Laura says that she understands what is currently cutting edge will be two years out of date before the hospital goes live.  The suppliers are all under contract to provide the latest versions of software and clinical equipment, so she is effectively working without knowing the full extent of the future IT estate.  The unknowns in the IT space are also adding to the complexity of her project.

Unusually for an IT project, the schedule has a full year after systems go live before the project structure closes down.  The hospital is due to open at the end of 2012, but the IT effort carries on for another 12 months.  It’s a period of bedding in, stabilisation, maintenance and evaluation.  I think this is a valuable lesson for other projects: you can’t close down a 4 year piece of development in a couple of weeks.  Given the scale and complexity of the IT systems going into the hospital, another year after go live to manage the handover to operations seems very sensible.

Even if you aren’t managing a super-complex mega IT project, there are lessons here that can be scaled down to your IT implementation, especially around team motivation and effective handover processes.  Laura’s hospital is going to be amazing when it’s finished, and I’m sure her team will leave it behind with a huge sense of achievement – and a whole lot of learning about how to cope on a project where the IT is shifting all the time.

Laura was speaking at the PMI Global Congress North America.  Her presentation was titled “Building a Cathedral: Managing Complexity in Mega Projects.”

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1. Laura reaches Level A Laura Magahy is Managing Director of MCO Projects Ltd, which she established in 2000 together with a colleague.  MCO is a project management, architecture and...
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IT-Enabled Business Change is a book about – surprise! – change in organisations.  But it’s a project book with a difference: it breaches that murky divide between IT and the ‘business’.  I hear this a lot, as if IT isn’t part of the business.  Manwani’s book is an attempt to bring the two areas together, in what he calls a ‘hybrid’ change:

“The label of ‘IT project’ is arguably simpler and descriptive since projects deliver change and IT describes the type of solution.  However, calling it an IT project implies an over-dependent focus on the technology part of the solution.  In contrast, ‘business change’ makes it clear that the focus is on a change in the business activities of an organisation which may or may not be enabled by IT.”

Hence IT enabled business change, which is a bit of a mouthful, but more accurate for most of the stuff we do on a day-to-day basis.  Hurrah!  Why don’t other projects talk about this cross-over more explicitly?

Manwani does re-invent the wheel a bit when it comes to the project lifecycle.  Tweak it, anyway.  He (with colleagues) has developed a new lifecycle for this type of hybrid project.  I would argue that most projects fall into the ‘IT enabled’ category, these days, and therefore we probably don’t need a separate lifecycle for them, but Manwani sets out his new lifecycle as distinct from the systems development lifecycle.  The steps are:

1. Align business and IT goals
2. Define business improvement
3. Design business change
4. Implement business change
5. Deliver benefits

The book then covers these five steps in more detail, and each section ends with questions relating to a case study.  I particularly liked the business improvement section, as I thought the description of systems thinking and how this relates to getting a technology solution right was very appropriate.  The book also champions business analysts and the role they play in getting the ‘right’ answer – my series on working with business analysts starts next week.

Manwani’s key point is that IT departments have to approach change as more than just shiny new computers or software.  A forward-thinking CIO can have a massive impact on the bottom line of a business, by making sure the right projects are delivering the right things.  He cites a study in which 51% of senior IT mangers said that “they were lacking in knowledge of business, both in general and in their industry, and the ability to apply this knowledge to real situations.”  Good grief.  If that’s you – or even if you work in a different bit of your company to IT but still don’t know what the rest of your organisation does – get out there and speak to your internal customer base.

If you’d like to win a copy of Manwani’s book, please send me a message with the words ‘I’m enabling change’ before 30 November 2009, and I’ll put your name in the hat.

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2. Book review: Communication Skills for Project and Programme Managers Communication Skills for Project and Programme Managers is the third and final book I read in the Focus on Skills series from TSO, a companion...
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Regardless – of when it actually falls, it’s about now so what are you doing to celebrate?

There are events going on around the world, but personally, I’ll be kicking back with a glass of wine tonight, toasting all my project management buddies!

It’s also an opportunity for me to say thanks to you all, for reading, for commenting, for following me on Twitter and for buying my book!  I’m really glad to have found such a sense of community online with a great bunch of people.

Have a great International Project Management day!

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2. Stepping into Project Management There’s a new project management blog in town: Stepping into Project Management. One person (sounds like a woman to me, but maybe I’m reading too...
3. Carnival of project management #17 The 17th Carnival of project management will be guest-hosted by Rich Maltzman, who you might remember I interviewed last year about the book he is...

Josh Nankivel presents How Do You Define Project Management To Your Friends? posted at pmStudent.com, saying, “This one generated a lot of comments and discussion.”  I’m not surprised.  Got to love pmStudent.

nissim ziv presents Project Management Interview Questions and Answers posted at Job Interview Guide, saying, “This article provides wide-ranging project management interview questions and answers for the project manager (PMO) as well as for the product manager position.”

Priyanka D presents 6 points for effective teams posted at DeskAway Blog, saying, “Article on teamwork… getting the best out of a team!”

Karine Simard presents Project management is about humans, not processes posted at Go Ahead, Manage, saying, “We must never forget that there would be no project without the people that make up the team.”  Yep, have to agree.

Steve Phillips presents ERP Project Failure: The Organization Is More Than Partially To Blame posted at Street Smart ERP, saying, “This blogs challenges much of the failed conventional wisdom of how to run a successful ERP project or any other large scale business software implementation. The focus is on the business case for more internal project ownership, specific strategies to control your own destiny, mitigate project risks, do more on your own and successfully manage software consultants and vendors.”

Howard Vaughan presents The 5 Laws of Effective Project Management posted at PM Lotus.

CA presents Guide to successfully delivering IT projects posted at Atlantic Canada’s Small Business Blog, saying, “We put man on the moon. We are setting up international space stations. The planes that Boeing and Airbus make keep thousands of lives safe in the air. But we can’t get software to work consistently. Instead of analyzing failure causes, let me share with you my observations on why projects succeed. Perhaps if we do more of what works, project success rate might go up.”

Elyse Nielsen presents Taming Chaotic Project Management – 8 Training Tips for how to develop project schedules posted at Anticlue, saying, “One of the key drivers to success is a successfully developed project schedule. How to develop a project schedule is a great skill which all project managers need to master. Let’s discuss some of the coaching tips which can help a new pm in a chaotic project management environment.”

Jesse Meijers presents How to take control over your work posted at Jesse Meijers, saying, “How to take control of your tasks; a simple strategy to be more effective.”

Darwin presents 9 Great Project Management Tools and Tips posted at Darwin’s Finance, saying, “A practical and actionable list of Project Management tips and best practices that you can immediately implement in your work and leadership style.” Nothing radical here, but general common sense stuff.

And one of my own articles about stakeholder management made it into the Wellingtone Project Management newsletter, which you can read here.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of project management using our carnival submission form. Past posts can be found on our blog carnival index page. And let me know if you would like to host the Carnival any time.

Technorati tags: carnival of project management, blog carnival.

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Lissa, your book is on its way – enjoy!

Related posts:

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3. Lazy Giveaway: last few days Let me guess: you’re adopting Peter Taylor’s ‘lazy’ project management principles and not doing anything until you really have to. Or you have done a...