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| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management Louis Klein Systemic Excellence Group Independent Think Tank for Leading Practice
Contents Abstract 3 I The Challenges of Complex Project Management 3 II Complexity 5 III Strategic Complexity Reduction 6 IV The Inevitability of the Social 8 V Learning from Change Management 9 VI The Practice of the Political - Systemic Stakeholder Management 10 VII The Practice of the Cultural - Systemic Inquiry 12 VIII Next Practice 14 IX Conclusion 15 Acknowledgement 16 Endnotes 16 References 17 ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 2| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
Social Complexity in Project Management Abstract In referencing social complexity, it seems that a problem description has been found that, at the very least, reveals the difference to traditional project management and opens the door to a space of solution into which we have yet only ventured a few steps. It is unfamiliar to think about political and cultural aspects in project management. However, initial experiences are promising. The following is an exploration of the existing possibilities, which make dealing with social complexity fruitful for project management. After a brief, fundamental consideration of complexity (II.) and strategic complexity reduction (III.), the inevitability of the social (IV.) is considered against and with the backdrop of practical experience in change management (V.). This allows then, in the sense of Next Practice development perspectives (VIII.) a shedding of light on the instrumental manageability of the practice of the political (VI.) and the cultural (VII.). Finally, the conclusion (IX.) will provide an answer to the primary question: How can the exploration of social complexity further develop and improve the capabilities of project management? ...................................................................................................................................................................................... Key words: social complexity, politics, culture, Next Practice, strategic complexity reduction ...................................................................................................................................................................................... I The Challenges of Complex Project Management If one views the subject of project management, three issues stand out in particular: first, the high rate of failing projects; second, the requirements of global cooperation; third, the so-called conspiracy of optimism [1]. What all three have in common is that they basically refer to the topic of social complexity, as will be shown below, in the fourth point. Failing Projects According to studies, we have become accustomed to quantifying the success rate of projects, at an average of 30 percent. Conversely, we expect up to 70 percent of all projects to fail. When we find ourselves in project management’s so-called country of origin, the sciences of engineering and related disciplines, the success rate of projects is still relatively high. Projects do not fail, or do so only rarely, due to technical challenges. Once we leave this world of Newtonian physics and engineering, as soon as requirements grow beyond the linearity of the technical blueprint, the success rates of projects collapse. Achieving success becomes a case of luck. Project management, ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 3| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
as we know it, seems deprived of solid ground whenever project parameters are not clear, when different interests, opinions and ideas come together, if political concerns and cultural differences come into play. Certainties take a tumble and, with them, the entire project. What could be pitted against this? How do projects gain stability in the face of political and cultural complexity? Global Cooperation Increasing global cooperation poses a seemingly different problem for project management. We all know about examples of engineering services from Germany, which are implemented in production sites in China, in order to realize projects, which are to be approved by authorities in Singapore. We know that these global projects run faster, are more cost-effective and of higher quality the closer the three parties - engineering, production and client - work together. But it is precisely within the circumstances of cross-cultural cooperation, in which various professions and national cultural spaces collide, that the question arises as to the conditions of possibility for successful collaboration. Of course, this issue arises in the same way within each context of project work. Still, how negotiation processes can be preconditions to the optimal configuration of cooperation models for a project becomes evident in global cooperation. Through inquiry into the conditions of the possibility of cooperation, the subject of globality is bound back to the problem of social complexity. And so the question becomes more precise: What are the political and cultural conditions for the possibility of global cooperation? The Conspiracy of Optimism And if the fundamental level of cooperation does not already incorporate enough political and cultural challenges for a project, we can observe at the aggregate level of expectations of expectations, the phenomenon of the so-called conspiracy of optimism. The conspiracy of optimism can be described as a reciprocal fish-tailing of optimistic assumptions in a web of expectations of expectations. This means that each party interested in the execution of a specific project makes the most favourable or optimistic assumptions about cost, duration and quality in order to introduce the most attractive and distinctive option into those arenas in which negotiations over scarce resources (time, money, people, etc.) are handled. As a result, the conspiracy of optimism leads to the optimal case being attributed with the certainty of a normal case. If, however, real normality enters into this over optimistic project, running costs and implementation times get out of hand and are often compensated with reductions on the side of quality, or lead with the same regularity to the failure of the projects. It is not absolutely necessary to seek Luhmann's basic assumptions about the dynamics of expectations of expectations and double contingency (Luhmann 1991) in order to bring the conspiracy of optimism topic in connection with social complexity. Luhmann, however, describes quite clearly in reference to Parsons, how double contingency contributes quite significantly to the dynamics of problems to which the formation of social systems is the evolutionary response. Social Complexity A focus on social complexity in modern project management research marks a difference, which allows a stepping out of the contexts of the success patterns of engineering sciences. Of course, we try to find more and more applications for these patterns of success and to repeat the successes. ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 4| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
According to Thomas Kuhn, philosopher of science, this marginalises the success of the particular practice until these practices are ventured in fields and applied to problems in which the proceeds thereof topple into the negative (Kuhn, 1996). The projects fail. We wonder why. It has been shown that it can result in a significant gain for the solution economy, to step out of the matrix of the known [2] and not improve the already known with its increasingly marginalised new revenues, but to seek solution innovation, to take up new perspectives and go new ways. Innovation in project management means leaving the well-known engineering framework and orienting oneself towards disciplines, sciences and professions, which offer alternatives for understanding and negotiation. II Complexity In order to understand complexity, it is helpful to leave the field of project management behind for a moment. Project management regularly seduces with the assumption that complexity can be explained by the complexity and size of projects. That is not true. Complexity describes a quality beyond that of complexity and size. If you will, complexity can be reduced to two terms: reflexiveness and emergence. Reflexiveness With reflexiveness, linearity is bent back upon itself and, thereby, broken. Reflexiveness is the basic characteristic of the cybernetic control loop [3]. This conjures up the image of a thermostat and heating system. It allows us a moment of naive reassurance. As long as reflexiveness plays out within a field in which we are dealing with a regulator, a control variable and the possibility of intervention or an intervention mechanism, the result of reflexiveness is homeostatic equilibrium. As soon as we add more components, controllers, control variables and possibilities for intervention, we leave the realm of effect chains and tumble into the chaos of feedback loops and causal networks. However, the success of project management lies in the reduction of complexity. Reflexiveness is the opposite of this. Emergence Research in chaos (Gleick, 1989) teaches us that reflexiveness is not the end but rather the beginning of everything. There is order in chaos (order from noise) (Foerster von, 1996). A reflexive action network can spawn the new and function as a stabilizer. We speak here of emergence. Elements are stabilized by the reflexive, erratic chaos of electrons, protons and neutrons. The erratic, reflexive clash of elements brings about chemical compounds. Organic compounds stabilize the erratic, reflexive interplay of chemical elements. And on it goes, from the autopoiesis of life [4] and the stabilisation of the psyche to the establishment of social systems. As stable and predictable our environment seems to be, it is as much the product of chaos and reflexive causal networks. Thus, chaos and complexity are the rule, not the exception. ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 5| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
III Strategic Complexity Reduction The issue of complexity reduction is just as old as the subject of complexity. If Luhmann denoted with the notion of double contingency, with the expectation of expectations of ego and age, a starting point for the formation of social systems, then contingency also addresses complexity (Luhmann, 1991). Contingency describes complexity from the perspective of possibilities. The more complex a system is, the more possibilities are inherent within, the respectively larger is the contingency. A closer look at the cybernetic relationship of the topic very quickly shows that complexity reduction is no solution. On the contrary, dealing successfully with complexity is possible only to the extent that the possibilities of action can be increased against a relevant environment. A strategic analysis of the issue moves requisite variety to the centre of the calculus and identifies three approaches within the equation: inherent complexity (increasing one's own variety), focus (reducing the scope of the relevant environment) and the therapeutic approach (a combination of both previous strategies). Requisite Variety In the 1960s, cyberneticist Ross Ashby suggested variety as a measure of complexity (Ashby, 1965). Here, variety relates primarily to contingency and tallies possible different system states, i.e. the more identifying and counting of different system states, the greater is the complexity; the greater is the contingency; the greater is the variety. As a basis for dealing with complexity, Ashby formulated the law of requisite variety. Ashby formulates that only complexity can absorb complexity. According to the cybernetic concept of regulation, in order to control a system, a regulating system must have more variety than the system being controlled. In management cybernetics, this is transferred to the management of organizations and their environments. The implementation of a managerial control requirement is successful whenever managerial practice has sufficient internal complexity. This is especially true when we have to deal with an environment that is so complex that we are continuously confronted with the unexpected. Management science and practice is the answer. The entire paradigmatic set of models, methods and instruments of management science basically does nothing more than significantly increase the internal complexity of management. Intrinsic Complexity Strategic management, or what Stafford Beer described as system-four in the Viable System Model (Beer, 1981, 1988), provides a good illustration of the structure of organizational or managerial intrinsic complexity. Thus, it is strategic management’s task to equip the organization with maps and models of the relevant environment and opportunities for its own operation. The focus is on then and there. A relevant environment is identified with regard to a possible future, and using scenario planning as an example, the variety of possible futures is mapped. On this basis, management can make strategies available to the organization in order to adequately meet different scenarios in terms of its own goals and the primary self-assertion of the organization. This sounds like something we could call therapeutic approach of management. ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 6| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
Focus Within this context, the neurological solution of a significant paradox needs to be discussed briefly. The environment is inherently always more complex than a system contained within it. How then is regulation possible at all? The solution is called focus. In neuroscience, focus is described as the ability of the brain to address a certain section of the environment as a relevant environment (Roth, 1997). On this basis, the brain is able to relate available intrinsic complexity to a slice of the environment so that the variety in the slice of the environment is smaller than the brain's available variety. The brain forms requisite variety, residual variety, in relation to this relevant slice of the environment and puts itself into the circumstance to be able to steer and influence this certain section of the environment. Therapeutic Approach This relatively simple relationship is leveraged in the therapeutic approach, so to speak. It is increased. On the basis of the distinction between perception and action, it is possible, on the one hand, in strategic management, to further differentiate options of perception and thus build up a larger residual variety and on the other hand, in operational management, to extend the possibilities of behaviour, the range of behaviour. We can imagine this as being in therapy, wherein the aim is to expand the possibilities of perception and the behavioural repertoire of a patient, so that a pathological or, at least, dysfunctional shortening of perception and/or shortening of action, can be overcome. The actual potent leverage effect, in this perspective, is based on the circumstance that not only the repertoires of perception and behaviour are expanded, but also rather results in an equally multiplying ratio of adaptation between the two sides perception and action. Therapeutic Approach For a particular perception or a respective scenario, I can store a respective behaviour or behavioural repertoire scenario. From a one-to-one relationship arises a much-to-many relationship, which multiplies ones own capabilities in terms of residual variety. ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
As we can see, our available repertoire of strategies for dealing with complexity is significantly larger and more sophisticated than what we intuitively accept. This is especially true for project management, which has become accustomed to being reduced to the commercial and technical aspects of scientific management. Scientific management is the successful model, which has dominated our ideas of economics and technology for the last fifty years. Faced with the issue of social complexity, political and cultural complexity, we can witness the classic failure of a successful model that, in its expansion of application, has at some point also reached into areas where its benefits were marginalized or even reversed. We are now aware of this and are challenged to think anew about how we handle social complexity. After these deliberations on complexity, let us now turn towards an area that, in its inevitability, is often taken for granted and detracted from our attention. What exactly is the social aspect? IV The Inevitability of the Social At the core of the social is the inevitability of the alter ego, the social other. With the inevitability of social others, one of the three central challenges of people is addressed: firstly, the inevitability of the living body, on the other hand, the inevitability of the conscious self, and finally, the inevitability of social others. Thus are highlighted three basic questions of human existence. We know that. Religion and philosophy seem to work through these three basic questions and try to make answers available converting contingency into certainty. The Inevitability of the Social Depending on whether we board a crowded bus or have to carry boxes across the courtyard, the social other sometimes seems a burden, other times, a help. This is a broad continuum, which cannot be reduced to the fact that humans are social beings. A person alone, excluded from group, family, society, cannot survive. This does not mean that inclusion will provide an answer in itself. Sociality, described by evolutionary biologist and physiologist Jared Diamond, secures benefits in survival. Depending on differentiation, sociality secures advantages over others (Diamond, 2005). Niklas Luhmann sums up this phenomenon in a theory of social systems (Luhmann, 1991). The internal differentiation of groups, organizations or companies implies different degrees of social performance. This means that the expression of social structures and social design makes an internal structure available in response to the question of the inevitability of social others. Populations beget social systems, which gain internal complexity through ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 8| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
differentiation and, in accordance with Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, acquire advantages in dealing with complexity (Ashby, 1965). Luhmann distinguishes between three levels of social systems: first, interactions, that is, communication among those present; second, organizations which justify and establish, through clear inclusion and exclusion mechanisms, social networks for the long run; and third, society, as the sum of all communication and stocks of social control. In addition to these different levels of social systems, Luhmann refers to social function systems, like the economy of society, the politics of society, the science of society, etc. Social subsystems are differentiated along generic distinctions and increase the internal complexity of society. For example, the business subsystem litigates the distinction between cash and non-payment, the science subsystem distinguishes between true and false. Through all of this, the social remains connected to the double contingency of the inevitability of the social other. The individual's freedom to maneuver becomes the limitation on the freedom of maneuver of the other. Ultimately, the social aspect is thus an emergent process of negotiation within which what we describe as social systems are established and stabilized. What is exciting, then, is the possibility of using the evaluation of social technologies to conduct social design impact assessment. Different social designs, different cultural tools have different consequences and implications which, depending on the choice of the criteria, are denoted as more efficient and desirable and can be propagated (Klein, 2009). Hence, a foundation is created for dealing with social complexity in project management. Political and cultural regulatory systems domesticate the individual's space of possibility within the social fabric and open up new spaces of possibility. Historian, philosopher and sociologist Norbert Elias describes this reciprocal conditional impact relationship in his books about the process of civilization (Elias, 1989). One could say that the scientific background of social complexity has been briefly illuminated through these remarks about complexity and the social. Thus, we have a scientific view of social complexity. However, concrete implications for project management have yet to be derived. We want to get closer to the concrete by taking an intermediate step and choosing a detour through organisational development and change management. V Learning from Change Management In organizational development, the project is the preferred format for change. There is and has always existed a close relationship between change management and project management. The significance of social complexity to the constancy of the project's success was discovered and recognized much earlier in change management than in project management. Distinctions introduced between hard and soft, between so-called hard number-, data- and fact-based approaches and so-called soft approaches founded on a diffuse, residual amount of people-based methods highlighted the problem, but did little to resolve it. Noel Tichy, organisational development and transformation consultant, presents an instrumentally useful differentiation with his TPC-Balance (Tichy, 1983). The TPC-Balance differentiates and distinguishes three observational perspectives: T stands for technological; P for political; and C for cultural. Tichy emphasizes a balanced awareness of these three perspectives which, within the modern western industrial model, show a definite lean towards technological ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 9| WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
aspects. Political and cultural aspects remain unilluminated and relegated to the region of the soft
factors. However, precisely these two perspectives, the political and the cultural, can be identified
as the foundation and drivers of social complexity.
TPC-Model of Social Complexity
VI The Practice of the Political - Systemic
Stakeholder Management
The reading of the political herein focuses primarily on the diversity of interests. Stakeholder
analysis cannot be overestimated as the basic tool of the political. This makes it even more
surprising how little and superficially it is applied in project management practice.
At the foundation of stakeholder analysis lay questions about the stakeholders of a project and
their various interests: who has what interest, and how do I deal with these circumstances?
Alone, the distinctions made between participants stakeholders mark out great differences in
project management practice, especially with respect to public projects. There is also a significant
difference in the quality of stakeholder analysis. At this point, only a brief referral to current train
station, airport or power plant projects illustrates the extent to which stakeholder interests, when
untreated or improperly taken into account, can force on-going projects to take notice of them as
"stakeholder activism". A project management routine of stakeholder interest exploration and
explication, particularly with respect to those affected by the project, allows the handling of this
cardinal critical success factor with confidence.
From a political perspective, the exploration and explication of stakeholder interests, however,
describes a relatively trivial way of dealing with the political and the use of the stakeholder
analysis. Up to this point, the description of stakeholder analysis does not go beyond an
ultimately unilateral approach. In the best case, it provides a comprehensive snapshot of the
underlying political structure of a project. But interests change over time.
How do the identified interests change over time, and how I do deal with the changes? These
questions add a temporal dimension and allow a dynamic perspective in the use of the
stakeholder analysis. In project management mainstream, such as in the Project Management
Excellence Model of the International Project Management Association, this is currently state of
the art in dealing with the political perspective of projects. In practical terms, this means getting a
feel for the changes in stakeholder interests by staying in continuous contact with stakeholders
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10 | WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012over the course of the project. This makes it possible, over time, to adapt to changing stakeholder interests and to actively deal with them. This allows identifying different degrees of contention with stakeholder interests along the scale of reactive, active and pro-active engagement. It opens up a spectrum that ranges from perception and response to stakeholder interests, to proactive negotiation processes concerning the differing interests of the project and its stakeholders. If we were, today, able to observe a comprehensive practice of proactively negotiating stakeholder interests in project management, the rate of projects failing would be significantly lower than we currently observe. From a systemic perspective, an outline of proactive negotiations with project stakeholders also remains well short of what is systemically possible and desired. The shift to a systemic perspective suggests giving up the centralized, self-referentiality of the project as a perspective of political thought and opening up to a systemic perspective, which could be described in three attributes as interdependent, multi-causal and polycentric. Interdependence Interdependence, as an introduction to a systemic perspective, builds on what has been described above as stakeholder dynamics. The interests of stakeholders may change over time and, this would now be the systemic part of the consideration, this can and will be accelerated by reflexiveness and interaction between the positions of project and stakeholders. This addresses the dynamics of a two-variable problem in that the two degrees of freedom are oriented towards each other: The stakeholder responds to the project, and the project is responsive to the stakeholders, and the stakeholders respond to the project's response to the stakeholders, and so on. Multicausality Multicausality fits further variables and degrees of freedom into the picture just described so that we gain the perspective of a network of reflexiveness and interaction. A stakeholder does not just react to what the project is doing, but is also tied, in interests and political positions, to what other stakeholders do and how these in turn react to what the project is doing and to what other stakeholders do. Polycentricity Polycentricity now opens up a third systemic perspective, in which different compression points of the reflexiveness and interaction networks can be identified . Although, within the underlying political structure of a project, it may seem obvious to think out policy using the project as core. However, within the landscape of the problem, it may become evident that the project does not comprise the compression point of interests, and furthermore, that there are several compression points of stakeholder interests, i.e. stakeholder alliances. By steering towards such a systemic perspective on the political dimension of projects, project management gains a complex skill that makes it possible to face a world that is described in English as vuca world. The world is vuca: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (Hicks Stiehm, 2002, Johansen, 2007). In terms of stakeholder analysis, it is perhaps time to think the image of the stakeholder landscape one step further towards a stakeholder society or, even better, a stakeholder ecology. Here, the concept of ecology refers to an understanding of ecology as the ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 | WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
science of simultaneity and coexistence and the implications thereof. From an ecological perspective, the entire spectrum from competition to symbiosis can be described within the reflexiveness and interaction of stakeholder interests. Whereby, and this should be noted only in passing, recent evolutionary research has shown that not competition, but symbiosis is the engine of evolutionary progress (Allen, 1992). Taking a systemic perspective on the political dimensions of stakeholder analysis expands the spectrum of roles for the project manager in a significant way. Apart from the requirement as a decision maker to take sides, in a purely legal sense, it becomes increasingly necessary to moderate in stakeholder exploration and explication processes and to play the role of mediator in bilateral and multilateral negotiation processes again and again. Of course, this is accompanied by an expansion of project management requirement profiles. This does not necessarily mean an excessive demand profile for each project manager. However, it shows that it becomes necessary, as a professional function in project management, to attain further qualifications/skills in order to take on new tasks. Project management goes soft! VII The Practice of the Cultural - Systemic Inquiry Getting a grasp on the cultural is not as simple. At the core, the concept of culture is still struggling to bring two substantially different interpretations of culture, the indicative and the appellative, into contact with one another (Williams, 1958). The indicative perspective on culture gives an account of the observable empirical. Culture accordingly describes the manner in which something is done or thought. Particularly in the Anglo-Saxon countries and wherever philosophical pragmatism serves as a reference, this reading of culture is widespread. The appellative concept of culture refers to values and morality. This reading describes culture as what is desirable or should be. The terms of sophistication and civility are also managed here very narrowly. Change management operates with both cultural terms. Unfortunately, the reference to culture is often accentuated in an undifferentiated or unilateral way. Only in recent years has an integrated and balanced handling of different cultural aspects been put across in change management. Exploratory organisational studies go a significant step further and describe culture as the paradigmatic reference of a community of practice [5]. This introduces another axis of distinction into the concept of culture. It takes the reality of each shared practice - and here we can equally think of a religious community or a project team - into view and embeds it into a practice referencing a paradigmatic context. With this idea, degrees of freedom are gained in the analysis of culture, which strikingly detach the cultural from major religious, philosophical and national cultural superstructures and also address the tension between a practice and related practices of meaning attribution, sense making (Weick, 1995) or meaning creation (Luhmann, 1991). It is not as simple in the cultural field as in the political sphere. As already seen, there is less sophisticated scientific framework specifying how to get culture into focus. The mainstream of intercultural training, based on statistical population research (Hofstede, 1991; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1993), has rather led project management practice in this area to a dead end. The training of stereotypes leads to frustration in various concrete situations. The basic assumption that there are the Americans or the Chinese or the Arabs is out of touch with project management reality. What does exist are people who significantly deposit their personal way of ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 12 | WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
life and professional practice in a portfolio of various meaningful provisions of reference. Cultural stereotypes are unhelpful in this context. A useful and highly developed approach is a tandem of the practice of organizational research and the theories of narration (Boje, 2001, 2007). The starting point is a basically legitimate unknowing and lack of understanding as an entry into, for example, the negotiation of co-operation models. Legitimate unknowing describes a radical transfer of supposed knowledge to a supposed lack of knowledge. It provides the advantage that, in a practice of self-assurance, what is actually commonly shared is recognised as such. It is expressed and stabilised in its function for all that follows. Similarly to the political, the cultural is about the exploratory identification of spaces of possibility, which support and foster specific practices. Unfortunately, this area does not possess any established instruments comparable to the stakeholder analysis. What does exist is a rich toolkit of ethnographic, ethno-methodological and micro-anthropological instruments [5]. There is also a cardinal format, namely, the qualitative interview. It, in turn, can be conducted within the traditional one-on-one situation, as well as in the setting of a focus group, or within extensive exploration processes, such as Systemic Inquiry. The described concept of culture moves very close to Luhmann's radicalism, relating social systems exclusively back to communication. It also resonates with the perspective of the Clue Train Manifesto (Levin et al., 2000), which promoted the understanding of markets as conversations. In this radicalness, the project can be described as a conversation, and project management as a convention. Or, referring to a formulation by one of the great thinkers of the 20th Century, Forrest Gump: Project management is as project management does. In this regard, the qualitative interview, once again, gains an entirely different meaning. It is, of course, also important to explore content, but in particular it should be taken into account that the qualitative interview latches into conversations and discussions that negotiate what should be empirical and normative about the project and its project management. In the qualitative interview of the Systemic Inquiry processes, three levels and thus the conditions of the possibility of each respective cultural negotiation process are explored. The three levels are the level of the stories, the level of semantics, and the level of the leading differences or generic distinctions (Klein, 2005). All stories are, in their own contexts, stories that mean the world. This is especially true for the individual perspective. In what the respective project manager tells about his project, in the stories he shares, the project becomes the project and takes shape. Viewed systemically, the individual story is a contribution to communication, to the conversation about the project, and only in the negotiation processes with the other stories of the other parties involved - the managers, employees, customers, etc. - the variety of the stories condenses to narration, to a theory of convention [7] about what the project is. In the exploration of the cultural dimension of projects, it is particularly instructive to observe how the different narrations of the relevant stakeholders in the crosshairs speak to condense foci of attention. That is, beyond the great narrative, beyond the project, there are points, historical facets, which are attached/measured with particular attention, relevance and significance. In this sense, the project is a collage of individual stories that come together in meaningful foci of attention. In addition to the story level, it is particularly valuable, especially for the external observer, to observe language and semantics. In the shifting of terms to everyday language use, the shifting of word meaning and word use, signal points are set that refer to the individual cultural character of a social system. What, at the level of semantics, can still be described as a particular connotation of a word may be further analysed at the level of generic distinctions - or formulated as Niklas Luhmann would, at ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 | WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
the level of generic distinctions are, in the sense of information theory, distinctions that produce a difference that makes a difference (Bateson, 1996). That sounds very theoretical at this point - and it is. Practically, it provides a powerful way to illuminate everyday experiences we know from conversations in which processes of mutual irritation arise because two people use one and the same word, but attach it with fundamentally different significance. We are accustomed to calling out the irritation within the context of a conversation, to briefly find an understanding of the difference, and then, in principle, carry on as before. We have then walked past a door that opened for a moment and granted us access to the processes with which we create our world. As initially described, the degree of instrumentalisation in the exploration of cultural perspectives for projects and project management is not as mature as what we can describe in terms of the political perspective. The opportunities for cultural exploration and explication are described in their theoretical feasibility, but there is so far little experience which balance of the application of theory in practice establishes a business case. I would like to conclude, however, with a quip, alleged to be written on the wall of the Ford Motor Company boardroom: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast and leadership for lunch and governance for dinner." VIII Next Practice What does this mean for social complexity in project management? As in change management, project management should ally itself with social complexity. A sole focus on complexity reduction remains defensive and reactive. The aim should be to develop ways of dealing with social complexity that traverse the span from the reactive to the active on to proactive. Luhmann's theory of social systems provides us with a more powerful theoretical framework. Luhmann describes social systems as systems that process meaning. Accordingly, at the base lies the ability to distinguish between what is and what could be. On the basis of this distinction, social systems enable their own autopoiesis. This opens up the possibility, within political and cultural dimensions, for project management practice to distinguish between what is and what could be. This is not trivial. Because with these distinctions, a third is also given, namely, a negation beyond the unity of the discrepancy in the distinction between what is and what could be. What here, in system theoretical jargon, seems rather hard to digest, justifies what sounds tautological in everyday language, like a short circuit: What is not possible is not possible. In this sense, meaning also always denotes that which remains inaccessible. For example, steering towards a best practice always leads to frustration, if it is not envisioned as a possible practice on the horizons of the actors. It is much more sensible to refer to a better practice within one's own space of possibility. The Next Practice is the next, possible better practice. When established as a possibility, it can actually be achieved. For stakeholder analysis, the cardinal instrument of politics, this means that the identification of interests alone and the derivation of communication plans are not so much in the foreground as a heuristic recommendation, but that stakeholder analysis allows the identification of an effective network which highlights a space of possibilities. Thus, a very important first step is taken to identify whether a specific project within a political space of possibility seems feasible or not. ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 | WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
Once this first comprehensive step is taken, a rich portfolio is available at the level of models, methods and tools, ranging from conflict management to interest mediation. The toolbox is already present, but mainstream project management practice still lacks the insight and training to systematically and routinely develop the corresponding maps of the spaces of possibility. Next practice IX Conclusion Here at end of the discussion, a radically pragmatic formulation about social complexity in project management would be that the systematic use of stakeholder analysis and qualitative interviews, selects two options where a Pareto-efficient impact may be subject to a twenty-eighty- relation. If one wanted to use this as a serious strategy for meeting social complexity in the field, it should be noted that, with reference to Tichy's TPC-balance, these two activities should make up two thirds of all the activities in a project. Technical project planning and project activities are reduced to one third of the activities and expenditures. Whoever now finds themselves irritated or upset has comprehended. It turns out, namely, that the lesser problem in dealing with social complexity lies in scientific know-how or an adequate practice's lack of instrumentation, but rather on the part of attitude and stance. Industrial modernity has with partial success hidden political and cultural aspects from the core of the practice of industrial production. However, the hidden has not disappeared. It demands its rights. The debate outlined here is possibly an adolescent symptom of management as a discipline. A mature project management would, therefore, be one which is able to recognize that project management is possible whenever a good balance of technical, political and cultural aspects are achieved; this calls for a radical rebalancing of available resources. There remains much to be done in project management research. Both the political and cultural spaces require models, methods and tools to be sighted, qualified and sensibly developed towards a practice of project management. All this can only succeed if the policies of the project management associations and the cultures of the project managers become aware of themselves. Without political and cultural support, substantive research on the issue of social complexity in project management will be nothing else than another failing project. ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 | WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012
Acknowledgement
At this juncture, heartfelt gratitude is expressed to the scientific colleagues who contributed to
this final formulation through their intensive feedback during presentations of the ideas set forth
herein, especially at the ICCPM Research and Innovation Seminars in Lille, Aug. 2011, and the
IPMA World Conference Brisbane, Oct. 2011.
Endnotes
1 Conspiracy of Optimism
The concept of the conspiracy of optimism refers to research by the International Center for Complex Project
Management (http://www.iccpm.com). It expresses that precisely when many stakeholders are involved, eg in
political arenas, project promotersrespective optimistic assumptions about project processes ultimately add up to
an unrealistic and improbable picture. As a result, the actual processes of a project generally remain well below the
level of the optimistic expectations.
2 The Disciplinary Matrix of the Known
The disciplinary matrix of the known refers to Kuhn’s instrumental paradigm term (1996). It designates as a
matrix the sum of the models, methods and tools that justify a discipline. What was designed as a description of
the sciences was later successfully applied to describe the meaning of professionalism in the professions. Project
management is, in this sense, the matrix of a professional discipline.
3 Cybernetics
Against the background of general systems theory (Bertalanfy von, 1968), the way in which cybernetics (Wiener,
1948) formulated an interdisciplinary approach capable of describing the consequential impact of the dynamics of
interdependence, multi-causality and polycentrism is very enlightening in dealing with complexity.
4 Autopoiesis
Maturana and Varela (1980) introduced the notion of autopoiesis, based on the ancient Greek terms αὐτός (auto)
in the sense of self and ποίησις (poiesis) meaning generating, to describe biological emergence processes of life.
Luhmann (1991) uses the term to describe the operatively closed self-organisation of social systems.
5 Ecology of Paradigms
Culture as a paradigmatic reference to a community of practice opens the reference frame analysis (Neitzel &
Welzer, 2011) to the level of modern, global simultaneity. The simultaneity of paradigmatic references can be
observed in an ecological sense in differentiated patterns from competition to symbiosis.
6 Ethnography and Management
The most promising approaches are currently provided by the connection of critical management theory with the
use of ethnography and auto-ethnography, for example, Alvesson and Deetz (2000) or Ezzamel, Willmott and
Worthington (2001). As in the analysis of discourse practice, it is concerned with the difference between
"espoused theory" and "theory in use", between what is said and what is done. This can be conscious or
unconscious. In any case, it is worth a closer look, because both are powerful, like the tension that creates the
difference as well.
7 Theory of Conventions
In the further development of Bourdieu's first praxeological approaches and to some extent also in contrast,
recent French institutional economics provides, under the heading theory of conventions, promising
......................................................................................................................................................................................
16 | WHITE PAPER Social Complexity in Project Management | SEgroup © 10/2012approaches for deepening the discourse of the practical aspects of management. Conventions are thus
compressed agreements about what counts as a normative reference for a particular practice in which practical
applications. Christophe Bredillet (2010) delivers the first applications for project management that focus on
epistemological practice and study projects as forms of conversation and project management as a convention.
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