The Wisdom of PMP (2) - Systematic Thinking and Complexity

The Wisdom of PMP (2) - Systematic Thinking and Complexity

In the seventh edition of the "Guide to the Management Professional Knowledge System" launched in 2021, PMI has added 12 major project management principles based on the traditional process and ITTO.

• stewardship
• Team team
• Stakeholders
• valuevalue
• system thinking system thinking
• leadership leadership
• tailoring
• Quality
• complexity
• risk risk
• adaptability and resiliencyadaptability and resiliency
• change

So, compare the previous top ten managers:

• Project integration management
• project scope management
• Project progress management
• project cost management
• Project quality management
• Project resource management
• Project communication management
• project risk management
• Project Procurement Management
• Project stakeholder management

We can see that the three items of stakeholders, quality, and risk have remained unchanged from the management process to management principles. The three types of stewardship management, value, team, and leadership can correspond to integrated management, resource management, communication management, etc. Cropping was a concept introduced in the 6th edition and promoted to a principle in the 7th edition. The four items of systems thinking, complexity, adaptability and resilience, and change are relatively new contents in the 7th edition.

Let’s focus on these new principles below.

project management standards

First, let’s take a big picture. The project management standard part includes two parts, namely the value delivery system and project management principles.

systems thinking

First let’s look at systems thinking. This topic is actually very common in business books over the past decade.

Let’s take a look at how System Thinking is defined in the Twelve Management Principles.

If you can’t see the picture clearly, let’s look at the text version:

• Recognize, evaluate, and respond to system interactions
  • key point
    • A project is a system composed of multiple interdependent and interacting activity domains
    • Requires thinking from a systems perspective and a holistic understanding of how various parts of the project interact and interact with the outside world
    • Systems are constantly changing and require constant attention to internal and external environments
    • Responding to system interactions enables project teams to take advantage of positive outcomes
  • Apply systems holistic thinking to projects
  • Apply systems holistic thinking to project teams
    • Have empathy for the business world
    • Critical thinking that focuses on the big picture
    • Have the courage to challenge assumptions and thought patterns
    • Seek external review and advice
    • Use integrated methods, efforts and practices to achieve consensus on project work, deliverables and outcomes
    • Hypothesize system dynamics interactions and responses using methods such as modeling and scenario-building
    • Proactively manage integration to support the realization of business results
  • Identify, evaluate, and respond to benefits from system interactions
    • Consider uncertainties and risks in projects early, look for alternatives and anticipate consequences
    • Demonstrated ability to adjust assumptions and plans throughout the project life cycle
    • Continuous provision of information and implementation
    • Communicate project plans and progress with stakeholders in a timely manner and predict the future of the project
    • Align project goals with client goals and vision
    • Able to adapt to changing needs and gain benefits through collaboration
    • Ability to exploit potential opportunities and identify threats
    • Decisions that benefit the entire organization
    • Identify risks more comprehensively and intelligently

There are many books on systems thinking, such as the following book "The Beauty of Systems", which many students must have read or heard of.

What is more like a textbook is this "Introduction to Systematic Thinking":

What will systems thinking do? An important thing is that if you think too much, the complexity will rise exponentially. So what we have to deal with next is complexity.

Master complexity

Let’s take a look at how to manage complexity in PMBOK.

• complexity
  • key point
    • Complexity results from human behavior, system interactions, uncertainty and ambiguity
    • Complexity can arise at any time during the project life cycle
    • Factors affecting value, scope, communication, stakeholders, risk and technology innovation can create complexity
    • When identifying complexity, project teams need to be vigilant and apply various methods to reduce the amount of complexity and its impact on the project
  • sources of complexity
    • Human Behavior
    • system behavior
    • uncertainty and ambiguity
    • technological innovation

Complexity science is an interdisciplinary field that studies various complex systems. It involves a variety of methods and technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, complex networks, and statistical physics. Examples of complex systems include phenomena and problems in life, society, economy, physics, chemistry and other fields.

An introductory book on complexity science is often on the list.

The more famous book of the same name is "Complex: A Guided Tour":

There is also this book "Scale" that was very popular in the past few years:

summary

Systems thinking and complexity are two new contents in the seventh edition of PMBOK. These two contents summarize many cutting-edge research in the past ten years. We cannot stop at understanding a few very dry sentences in the book, but should read the original works of these contents, the cutting-edge research on these contents, and the application cases of these contents.