Managing Chaos and Unforeseen Uncertainty
This paper focuses on chaos and unforeseen uncertainty to establish a link between these practices and how to manage them. The paper aims to propose constructive ways of dealing with the complexities arising due to chaotic situations and unforeseen uncertainty in a project management environment. This can hence lead to wider awareness and development of the skills and competencies required to evolve project management into complex adaptive systems
“Chaos is inevitable. In the sense that perturbation is evolutionary, it's also desirable .But managing it is essential. It's no use for any of us to hope that someone else will do it. Do you have your own personal strategies in place?”(Brinkworth, C. P. 2006).
Chaos means that strategies go wildly astray. It is often associated with missed deadlines,
understaffing, runaway costs, and similar situations generally considered negative. Under these circumstances “Chaos” describes a situation where the goals of a strategy are unachievable and therefore the outcomes become random, unpredictable and often undesirable. This is exemplified in a recent E-mail message by Bill Ford to all of Ford
Motor’s employees saying: "The business model that sustained us for decades is no longer sufficient to sustain profitability." Geoffrey Colvin, senior editor at Fortune magazine, analyzes Ford’s problems in his article “Managing in Chaos” (Colvin, 2006).
Projects with major sources of foreseen uncertainty, project managers must first identify events that could affect the project. The task could be as simple as making a list of risks or opportunities and identifying different courses of action to deal with events as they materialize.
Although critical-path methods are still good for handling complexity, there also must be some way to represent the potential influence of foreseen uncertainties. The decision tree — a graphic that helps managers to consider and communicate the effects of early decisions on later uncertainties and thus on later decisions — is a useful approach. Each branch of the tree represents a contingency plan for a major foreseen uncertainty.
To track projects featuring unforeseen uncertainty, teams must monitor not only which activities are complete, but also which branch of the decision tree has materialized. The manager shifts from master scheduler and trouble shooter to reactive consolidator of what the team has achieved so far.
With unforeseen uncertainty, managers must ensure all parties know the contingencies and, from the project’s outset, buy into the alternative plans and outcomes. During the project, managers must constantly monitor all risks and communicate them to stakeholders.
Abdurrezagh Ramadan Ali Shabshaba(3-2014)
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