PAPERS Managerial Complexity in Project-
Based Operations: A Grounded Model
and Its Implications for Practice
Harvey Maylor, Cranfield School of Management, United Kingdom
Richard Vidgen, University of Bath, United Kingdom
Stephen Carver, Cranfield School of Management, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT ■
This article reports an investigation into project
managers’ perceptions of managerial complexity.
Based on a multistage empirical study,
elements of “what makes a project complex to
manage” were identified and classified under
the dimensions of mission, organization, deliv-
ery, stakeholder, or team—the MODeST model.
Further, the data showed that these elements
had both structural and dynamic qualities and
that the elements are interdependent. Project
managers are shown to be embedded in this
complexity. The practical implications of the
research include the ability to describe mana-
gerial complexity in a manner consistent with
the actuality of the lived project environment.
This provides a framework for the description of
the level of managerial challenge or difficulty,
which will allow the assessment of individual
and organizational responses to it in the future.
Further, the opportunity exists for active man-
agement of complexity.
KEYWORDS: projects; managerial
complexity; structural; dynamic; MODeST;
contextualization
Project Management Journal, Vol. 39,
Supplement, S15–S26
© 2008 by the Project Management Institute
Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com)
DOI: 10.1002/pmj.20057
INTRODUCTION ■
P
rojects are key processes in modern operations. Although project
management is often relegated to a single discreet chapter in opera-
tions management textbooks (e.g., Slack, Chambers, Johnston, &
Betts, 2005), the implications of the performance of an organiza-
tion’s projects stretch way beyond such limited consideration. Much
operational work is carried out as projects (e.g., client projects, new product
development) and organizational change initiatives. As more work is carried
out through projects, it becomes increasingly necessary that the basis of the
practices being employed is subject to critique. One criticism of currently
accepted practices is the lack of contingency (Hayes, 2002; Maylor, 2001) and
an almost Tayloristic “one-size-fits-all” approach to management. Our
research problem begins with a major input to this contingency: obtaining
an understanding of what makes projects complex or difficult to manage.
Several attempts to define project complexity have appeared in the literature
(e.g., Shenhar, 2001; Xia & Lee, 2004), but we believe these to be inconsistent
with the diversity of usage of the term in organizations today and only partially
helpful in understanding the associated task of managing these activities.
The aim of this article, therefore, is to develop a grounded model of man-
agerial complexity. Our empirical findings suggest that in contrast to the
literature, which largely defines complexity in structural terms, it has a
bipartite nature, having both structural (that is, relatively stable qualities)
and also important dynamic qualities.
This development has implications for examining contingency, manage-
ment response, and effectiveness, and thereby the opportunity to contribute
to theory and practice. Practice in this instance refers not only to the work of
practitioners but also to the contents of the bodies of knowledge.1
Background
An increasing proportion of work is being undertaken as projects (Midler,
1995; Turner & Muller, 2003). Siemens recently estimated that over 50% of all
their value-adding activity is carried out in projects (The Economist Group,
2005). This fact has been coupled with a burgeoning in the membership and
influence of professional institutes; the Project Management Institute (PMI)
is now the world’s largest professional association. As Grabher (2004, p. 1491)
notes, “Projects are cool, it seems.” However, managing projects is
problematic. Projects regularly fail to meet their objectives (expressed in
1 Descriptors of accepted practice used as certification baselines by the major project management professional
associations, including the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the Association of Project Management
(APM) in the United Kingdom.
2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj S15
 Managerial Complexity in Project-Based Operations
PAPERS
their simplest terms)—time, cost, and
quality/scope (e.g., Holmes, 2001;
KPMG, 2002; Standish Group, 2001)—
and such failure has a significant
impact for practitioners and their
employers. The practice of managing
projects is, therefore, of significant
interest to organizations.
Projects are nominally finite activi-
ties, with low levels of repetition, carried
out by temporary organizations (Lundin
& Soderholm, 1995). The scope of
such work is extensive. Moreover,
the term “project” has broadened
through projectification (Midler, 1995;
Whittington, Pettigrew, Peck, Fenton, &
Conyon, 1999; Winch, 1994); emergence
of service delivery projects (Levene
et al., 2002); organizational change
(Pettigrew, 1998); and the phenomenon
of programification (Maylor, Brady,
Cooke-Davies, & Hodgson, 2006).
Project-based organizations (for
instance, prevalent in consulting, IT, and
construction) deliver much of their rev-
enue earning through nonrepetitive
operations. Even where the prevalent
activity in an organization is high-
volume, low-variety work (manufacturing
or service), lower-volume, higher-
variety activities will be evident in new
product development, process improve-
ment, organizational change, and other
vital processes. In some sources, proj-
ects are defined in terms of their
uniqueness (e.g., Project Management
Institute [PMI], 2004). While the activity
may be unique, the process that is fol-
lowed will often have a higher degree of
commonality with what has been done
before (Davies & Brady, 2000).
The management of such processes
is characterized by managers having to
cope with a potentially complex array
of tasks and uncertainty as to their per-
formance (e.g., duration). There are
technical or content aspects of this
activity (e.g., managing the technology
in new product development) along-
side the business process. It is gaining a
better understanding of the task of the
project manager that is of interest to
this article.
S16 2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
For management research, a num-
ber of features of this process are of
interest. The current levels of failure
occur despite having numerous project
management methodologies and “bod-
ies of knowledge” (e.g., Association for
Project Management [APM], 2005;
Office of Government Commerce
[OGC], 2005; PMI, 2004). These contain
what is deemed to be accepted practice
and represent a strong dominant para-
digm. Bodies of knowledge are not
present in many other areas of organi-
zational activity, and so their role and
contribution to practice are phenome-
na worth investigating.
Another feature is the lack of
contingency that exists within this
dominant paradigm. In particular, little
consideration is given to the manage-
ment context and, in particular, to the
complexity of the management task. It
is clear that there is a need to better
understand this context (Grabher,
2004; Shenhar, 2001). The opportunity
exists to examine the nature of the
knowledge provided to practitioners
(e.g., the content of the bodies of
knowledge) and to understand what we
will argue is a key driver for contin-
gency: the complexity of the task of
managing the project.
Project management is an emerg-
ing discipline in business and manage-
ment (by the criteria of Fabian, 2000).
However, as a subject, it is problematic:
as described previously, much of the lit-
erature would best be defined as
accepted practice rather than best
practice; it is highly prescriptive and
frequently ignores context (Maylor,
2001); there is a lack of theory building
research (Turner, 1993); it is inconsis-
tent methodologically with recognized
business and management disciplines
(Meredith, 2002); and what theory is
claimed to exist is obsolete (Koskela &
Howell, 2002). Further, the project
management literature is highly nor-
mative (e.g., Sydow, Lindkvist, &
DeFillippi, 2004). Indeed, there is a
prevalence of a highly Tayloristic one-
best-way approach. This approach is
inconsistent with the contextual diver-
sity that managers face. Indeed, there
appears to be much greater value in
considering projects as complex adap-
tive systems (e.g., Harkema, 2003).
Complexity in Projects
The Random House Webster’s College
Dictionary says that complex means
“composed of many interconnecting
parts” and complicated means “com-
posed of many elaborate interconnect-
ing parts.” The subtle distinction
between complex and complicated
is the nature of the relationships
between the parts. A wristwatch has
many interconnected parts and is
indeed a complicated artifact but it
is not complex. Luoma (2006) notes
that complex is derived from the Latin
plexus, meaning braided together. In a
complex system, the different elements
interact and produce outcomes that are
nonlinear and unpredictable. It may be
possible to recognize qualitative pat-
terns of behavior, but complex systems
are not amenable to treatment by tradi-
tional systems analysis where regularity,
separability of elements, and clear
cause-and-effect relationships are
assumed. Further, a complex system
has path dependence and is highly sen-
sitive to initial conditions. Thus, any
project takes place in an historical con-
text and its starting conditions (e.g., the
state of existing relationships between
stakeholders, the trust between project
team members) cannot be calibrated
precisely to be able to make reliable
predictions.
In Table 1, definitions of project com-
plexity adopted in the project manage-
ment literature are presented. Maylor
(2003), in an attempt to produce a work-
ing model, synthesized complexity as
comprising three factors: organizational
complexity (the number of people,
departments, organizations, locations,
nationalities, languages, and time zones
involved, level of organizational buy-in,
authority structure), resource complexi-
ty (the scale of the project, often indicated
by the size of the budget), and technical
 Authors Key Aspects of Complexity
Baccarini (1996) The number of physical elements of the project and their interdependency.
Williams (1999) Project complexity is characterized as structural uncertainty (number of elements
and their interdependence, including multiple objectives and a multiplicity of stake-
holders) and uncertainty (of goals and methods).
Shenhar (2001) Projects can be classified on a single, static dimension, as either assembly projects,
system projects, or arrays/programs.
Maylor (2003) Complexity is the product of organizational, technical/novelty, and scale/resource
complexity.
Jaafari (2003) Creative-reflective project model for high environmental and high project complexity
situations. Project managers have to recognize that their models are observer-
dependent, time-dependent, and problem-dependent.
Xia and Lee (2004) Two-dimensional: organizational complexity and technological complexity, and
structural and dynamic elements of these two.
Cicmil and Marshall (2005) Projects involve complex communicative and power relations among actors, ambi-
guity, and equivocality of performance criteria, and change over time.
Table 1: Complexity in project management literature.

complexity (the level of novelty of any
technology, system, or interface, and
uncertainty about the process or the
requirements). Although this model has
proved useful in establishing the concept
in practice, in use it was evident that
organizations were finding other factors
that increased the complexity of the
projects they carried out. Typical among
these other factors (albeit observed
anecdotally) was the effect of uncertain-
ty (known unknowns and unknown
unknowns). This is consistent with the
findings of Turner and Cochrane (1993)
and Williams (1999). Specifically, uncer-
tainty may be in the form of ill-defined
goals or methods or emergent uncer-
tainty in the project, for instance due to
changes in customer requirements or
changes in personnel. This is similarly
reflected in the information systems (IS)
literature (e.g., Schmidt, Lyytinen, Keil, &
Cule, 2001). Complexity, it seems, is not a
static entity.
Cicmil and Marshall (2005) further
describe this evolutionary nature of
complexity in a construction process,
with the processes of social interaction
interfacing with the persisting ambiguity
in the context of flux and change.
Projects are socially constructed (Lundin
& Soderholm, 1995) and definitions of
complexity should reflect this, by includ-
ing social and technical dynamics.
A consistent theme from the project
management complexity literature is
that the various definitions lack
grounding; indeed, Xia and Lee (2004)
state that “there are no well-defined
frameworks in the literature that can be
used to systematically describe the key
dimensions and characteristics of
[project] complexity” (p. 71). We further
argue that this is only one element of
managerial complexity—hence our
research question: What makes proj-
ects complex to manage?
This lack of conceptualization pro-
vides an opportunity for theory build-
ing, with a view to understanding what
might constitute an appropriate orga-
nizational response to managerial
complexity. With this understanding
comes the possibility of influencing
practice. For instance, for a given proj-
ect, could the complexity be addressed
in an effort to manage business risk, or
be used to determine the level of sys-
tematization that is required? These are
not currently subjects within the bodies
of knowledge identified. However, in
order to determine or assess the
response to a level of complexity, a good
understanding of what is being treated
as the independent variable is required
before the implications for the depend-
ent variable can be established.
Methodology
The objective of this study was to
answer the research question: What
makes a project complex to manage?
The research methodology seeks to sur-
face the subjective views of project
managers, to explore how they perceive
and construct their notions of com-
plexity around their tasks of “manag-
ing.” The research design involved two
stages: (1) exploratory workshops were
held with in-company small groups to
establish project complexity themes
and to test the data collection method,
and (2) a large-scale workshop was
conducted at a regional meeting
attended by more than 100 project
managers. There was no overlap in the
membership of these groups.
The first-stage workshops were car-
ried out with small groups of project
managers (four to seven at a time in

2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj S17

 Managerial Complexity in Project-Based Operations
PAPERS
single organizations). The objectives
were threefold: (1) to develop and test a
data collection method that would gen-
erate a comprehensive set of concepts
of complexity, (2) to provide a process
of sensitization to managers’ percep-
tions of the effects of such complexity,
and (3) to determine if this was indeed
an investigation that was likely to
yield any useful theoretical insight.
Exploratory workshops were carried
out at three different organizations.
This was a purposive sample, consis-
tent with an exploratory phase of
research, and providing a sample that
offered diversity on the projects
undertaken (Dobbert, 1982). The organ-
izations were drawn from the telecom-
munications sector (major global
corporation), the defense sector (major
provider of scientific services), and
a regional transport infrastructure
provider. For each organization, a short
written brief of the purpose of the
workshop was provided, and personal
contacts of the authors were used to
secure participation and involvement of
individuals. Individual attendees were
selected on the basis that they were or
had been in the role of project manager.
Within the workshop, the process
began with an introduction. Partici-
pants were then provided with pens
and Post-it® Notes and asked to write
down what made managing a project
complex in their experience. No further
grounding in the terminology was pro-
vided. The participants initially worked
in silence, then once the personal lists
were exhausted, they worked in groups,
initially describing and then grouping
concepts with common themes, organ-
ized hierarchically (this is consistent
with other workshop methodologies,
such as Bossert [1991]). The concepts
and the categories provided were both
recorded.
In the first workshop, 39 concepts
were generated, which were classified
into 8 categories. In the second
workshop, a further 19 concepts were
identified, and in the last of these initial
explorations, a further 13 were generated.
S18 2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
At this stage, it appeared that there
was more to uncover. Recordings of
the workshops (audio and/or extensive
notations taken during the workshops)
were used to check the meaning during
the process of transferring the workshop
data into research notes. It was desired
to maintain an open theoretical per-
spective on the main issue, and
anything that was heard or seen that
might be even remotely relevant was
captured. At this stage, the argument for
retaining any concept did not have to be
made; it simply had to be recorded (con-
sistent with Huxham & Vangen, 2000).
With 71 concepts at this stage, the
method for running the workshops was
now sufficiently robust, and the
research moved to stage two to allow a
greater number of responses to be
included. A group of 107 project man-
agers at a regional meeting of a profes-
sional project management association
provided the responses. The results
were gathered in the same way, but
with groups of eight to ten preparing
their concepts and classifications. Each
group presented their findings in ple-
nary, thus allowing the researchers to
carry out a plausibility check (Whyte,
1978) of any terms that had not been
included previously.
The result of the stage 2 workshop
confirmed the 71 initial concepts and,
when analyzed, provided further con-
cepts and clarification of the multiple
dimensions of those concepts. The
process of capturing these concepts
ensured that the voice of the respon-
dents was not obscured, and where
alternative meanings were possible,
these were explored. Following the
recording of the raw concepts, the clas-
sifications provided in the workshops
were examined to determine their abil-
ity to reduce the data effectively. The
classifications presented here provided
a best fit with the overall data set (con-
sistent with Kolb, Rubin, & MacIntyre,
1984) and were generated by active
experimentation as part of the research
process, involving both researchers in
much iteration. The process of sense
making here is consistent with Strauss
and Corbin (1999), the process stop-
ping after open coding and classifica-
tion had taken place.
The results generated 160 concepts.
These confirmed and elaborated
the original concepts identified in stage
one and provided 89 new ones. A total
of 128 responses were incorporated
into the analysis, and while not pre-
cluding the discovery of further ele-
ments (e.g., generated by the specific
conditions found in one industry or
sector), an initial model of managerial
complexity for projects, which will be
carried forward for further testing and
refinement, was yielded.
Results
The first finding emerging from the
data is that basic or structural complex-
ity is multifaceted and comprises con-
cepts as shown in Figure 1. These have
been represented as a tree structure.
Structural complexity gives a static, or
snapshot, view of the project and its
environment, comprising five dimen-
sions: mission, organization, delivery,
stakeholders, and team. In Figures 2–6,
these categories are expanded and
show the detailed concepts that
emerged from the study. To avoid mak-
ing a judgment about the project com-
plexity factors (e.g., this factor is good,
this one is bad), and to provide consis-
tent presentation of the data, the
factors are phrased as questions.
In coding the concepts, it was noted
that a concept often has a profile of its
impact on the complexity and out-
comes of the project. Many of the
responses contained expressions of
extremes of what can be regarded as a
continuum for each variable—for
instance, “lack of senior management
support” was considered to be a prob-
lem factor for projects, as was “interfer-
ence by senior management.” Thus, as
a first approximation, this profile can
be stated as “the right amount of a fac-
tor is beneficial but too much or too
little increases the level of complexity
that project managers experience.”
 Managerial complexity:
MODeST dimensions

Mission Organization Delivery Stakeholders Team

Time and space Process Stakeholder Project staff

Objectives
attributes

Organizational Resources Project

Scale Inter-
setting manager
stakeholder
relationships
Uncertainty
Group

Constraints

Figure 1: Dimensions of perceived managerial complexity.

Mission

Objectives Uncertainty
• Is there a clear vision for the • Is the timescale realistic? *
project? *** • Are the implications and side effects
• Are the business case, goals, success understood?
criteria clear? *** • Is there a large number of
• Are project goals aligned with the unknowns? *
organization’s strategy? • Have the assumptions been tested?
• Are there measures for the success • Is there a large solution space? *
criteria? • Are there many ways of achieving the
• Are the requirements clear? solution?
• Is the scope of the project clearly • Is there a high degree of urgency?
defined? • Is the budget defined?
• Are there significant intangible
Scale benefits?
• Large no. of deliverables? • Are there interdependencies between
• Long timescale? ** projects? ***
• Large no. of resources? ** • Are there competing priorities
• High value (budget)? * between projects? ***
• High profile (e.g., strategic, • Are there many interdependencies
controversial)? within project?
• Broad scope (e.g., product for a • Are there multiple technology
global marketplace)? interfaces (hardware, software)?
• Is the product aimed at a new market?
Constraints • Is product highly customized? *
• Confidentiality (e.g., IP)? • Does the project involve new
• Security? * technology? ***
• Health and Safety? * • Has the project been done before
• Legislative, compliance? * (degree of novelty)? ***

Note. *Concept appears three to four times in the data. **Concept appears five to eight times in the data.
***Concept appears more than nine times in the data.

Figure 2: Mission concepts.

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 Managerial Complexity in Project-Based Operations
PAPERS

Organization

Time and space Organizational setting

Time Project/organization fit

• Are there multiple time • Is there a mismatch
zones? *** between matrix structure of
project and department
structure of organization?
Space • Is delivery to a nonproject
• Are project team members based organization?
colocated? ***
• Is there face-to-face
communication between Organizational change
project team members? ** • Is there ongoing
organizational restructuring
that impacts the project?
Geography • Does the project involve
• Are there multiple organizational restructuring
currencies? (e.g., BPR)? *
• Are there multiple • Does the project involve
languages? ** cultural change?

Note. *Concept appears three to four times in the data. **Concept appears five to eight times in
the data. ***Concept appears more than nine times in the data.

Figure 3: Organization concepts.

This is represented by a U curve, as
shown in Figure 7.
MODeST provides a grounded
structural model of managerial com-
plexity. However, a consistent and
repeated theme from practitioners was
the interaction between the concepts
that make up this model. It was
described as “a multiplicative effect” of
many concepts on the overall picture
for practitioners. Thus, the structural
elements of the project complexity
model should be thought of as interde-
pendent, and it is the interconnections
that give rise to complexity beyond the
individual structural dimensions. A
second part of complexity revealed by
the data, therefore, is the interaction
effects between the elements of struc-
tural complexity. For instance, it was
clear from the data that external stake-
holders had an impact on the way that
a project was managed, expressed in
terms used here as interaction effects
between elements of the level of stake-
holder involvement and the project
management methodology (PMM)
used. Even within dimensions, there is
interaction complexity—for instance,
in interdependencies and relationships
between suppliers and other external
stakeholders in a project.
The language used by the respon-
dents indicated that the elements of
structural complexity are either an ini-
tial condition or an element with, at
best, some temporary stability. Many
respondents described a further set of
elements that were identical in nature to
the structural set but that involved
change. For instance “organizational
structure” was a clear influence on com-
plexity; however, many respondents
noted that “organizational changes dur-
ing project” also provided another ele-
ment. Further analysis showed that for
every structural element there is a corre-
sponding dynamic element.
Table 2 shows the MODeST model
including examples of both structural
and dynamic elements of managerial
complexity.
A further aspect of complexity was
seen to arise from the dynamics of indi-
vidual structural elements being com-
pounded by interactions with other
structural and dynamic elements. For
instance, changes in the organization
in which a project was being conducted
through restructuring provided a com-
plexity in itself but had a dynamic
interaction with external stakeholders,
resources, and decision making/gover-
nance.
Lastly, there was a category of data
that has not been covered so far. In
answer to the question “What makes a
project complex to manage?” a number
of workshop participants recognized
their own roles in this process—for
instance, stating “not breaking down
a project sufficiently” or “failure to
recognize activity interdependencies.”
Indeed, regarding the individual con-
cepts shown in Figures 2–6, the project
manager has an impact on many of
these by their considerations and
actions—for instance, with the issue of

S20 2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj

 Delivery

Process Resources

Administration Project processes Resources—human

• Project data collection-is • Are project processes • Resource availability:
the data: defined and standardized • Are human resources
• Accurate? but not over-bureaucratic? shared across projects? *
• True? • Is there clear responsibility • Do human resources
• Complete? for tasks and deliverables? have sufficient % FTE
• Project reporting: • Are the work packages well allocated to the project?
• Is the true defined? • To what extent is there
progress/status of the reliance on key experts?
project known? • What is the availability of
• Is there information Project management key experts? *
overload? methodology (PMM) • Who controls human resources
• Is status communicated • What is the maturity level of for the project? ***
effectively up, down, the project organization? • Does the project manager
and sideways? • How well does the project have control over resource
• Is the procurement process team understand the PMM? selection?
effective? Are project inputs • Is there a common PMM
acquired in a timely used throughout the
manner? project? *
• Is the PMM used for real
(e.g., not subject to arbitrary Resources—technology
Decision-making override by senior • Does the project have tool
• Is there effective management on support?
governance for project cost/urgency grounds) • Are the tools new?
decision-making? * • Is the PMM appropriate to • Are the tools
• How many levels of the project (e.g., is there home-grown/unsupported?
management are involved in blanket use of Prince 2 for
project decision-making? all projects)?

Change management Resources—financial

• Is the change management process sufficiently flexible? • How flexible are project
• Is the change management process cost effective? budgets/financial resources?

Note. *Concept appears three to four times in the data. ***Concept appears more than nine times in the data.

Figure 4: Delivery concepts.

Structural Dimension Dynamic Dimension

Mission Are the requirements clear? How frequently do the requirements change?
Organization Is there a mismatch between matrix structure Is there ongoing organizational restructuring
of project and department structure of that impacts the project?
organization?
Delivery How well does the project team understand the Is a new project management methodology
project management methodology? being introduced?
Stakeholders How many stakeholders are there? Are the stakeholders changing?
Team Are the team members motivated? Is the level of motivation of team members changing?
Table 2: Examples of MODeST structural and dynamic complexity elements.

2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj S21

 Managerial Complexity in Project-Based Operations
PAPERS
Stakeholder attributes
Stakeholder identification
• How many stakeholders
are there? ***
• Are there unidentified
stakeholders? *
Support for project
Do the stakeholder groups:
• Have buy-in to the project?
• Have commitment to the
project?
• Interfere with the project? *
• Have sufficient availability
of time for the project?
• Resist the project? *
• Take ownership of the project?
• Respond to project needs
in a timely manner, e.g.,
decision-making? *
Relationship basis
• Is the relationship basis of
project with stakeholders
contractual?
Note. *Concept appears three to four times in the data. **Concept appears five to eight times in the data. ***Concept appears more than nine times
in the data.
Figure 5: Stakeholder concepts.
stakeholder analysis shown in Figure 5,
the question is raised: “Are there any
unidentified stakeholders?” Given that
project management has some (if not
the main) responsibility for stakeholder
management, the project manager is a
key actor and is embedded within the
conceptualization of the complexity of
their projects rather than an external
observer of the project. This finding
is not surprising and indeed suggests
that many of the elements of
managerial complexity can themselves
be managed.
Implications
The point of departure for this article
was the identification of the ubiquity of
the project as an organizational form.
Projects are important both for rev-
S22 2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
Stakeholders
Experience
Does the stakeholder group:
• Understand the implications
of the project?
• Have realistic expectations
of the project? **
• Have experience of the
domain? *
• Have experience of project
management? *
Power
Does the stakeholder group:
• Have the power to make
decisions (e.g., to impose
SOP)?
• Have authority?
• Have accountability?
Key stakeholders
• Are unions involved?
• Is there senior
management support? **
• Is there a clear sponsor?
enue-generating activities and orga-
nizational change. There are many
well-established methodologies for
managing projects (bodies of knowl-
edge, PRINCE2). These are poor at deal-
ing with variations in the context in
which they are applied. Complexity was
identified as a key contextual element
where the definitions used in its discus-
sion appeared inconsistent with the
actuality described by practitioners.
While some organizations do have their
own methods for assessing project
complexity (along the lines of Maylor,
2003), these were noted to be deficient
by not having considered the extent of
the nature of complexity, and its
dynamic elements in particular.
Specifically, the data have shown that
managerial complexity is a far more
Interstakeholder relationships
Sociopolitical
• Have the stakeholder groups
worked together before? *
• Are there hidden
agendas/unsurfaced
assumptions? ***
• Is there conflict between
stakeholders?
• Are there power struggles
between stakeholders?
• Do the requirements of the
different stakeholders
conflict? ***
• Are there competing priorities
of stakeholders? ***
• Is there a shared understanding
by the stakeholders about the
aims of the project?
Interdependencies
• Are there interdependencies
between stakeholders (e.g.,
between suppliers) **
extensive construct than previously
described. As a result, it does question
how appropriate the bodies of knowl-
edge and accepted practice are to deal
with this extended model of complexi-
ty, in particular the dynamic aspects.
In structural complexity terms, the
data identified stakeholders as a major
dimension contributing to project
complexity. Adapting Freeman (1984,
p. 46) and Mitroff and Linstone (1993,
p. 141), we have used the term stake-
holder to cover “any individual, group,
organization, or institution that can
affect or is affected by the achievement
of the project’s process or objectives.”
Indeed, from an organizational theory
perspective, a project can be seen as
being constituted from the entire set of
relationships it has with itself and with
 its stakeholders (Mitroff & Linstone,
1993). The data show that project man-
Team
agers are also concerned with the rela-
tionships between stakeholders (inter-
Project staff Project manager action effects) and (consistent with
• Are the team members • Does the project manager Rowley, 1997) that the project is embed-
motivated? * display leadership? ded in a network of stakeholder rela-
• Do the team members have • Does the project manager
tionships that have an impact on the
a good attitude? have authority? *
• Are the team members • Is the project manager an complexity of managing the project.
committed to the project? effective communicator? ** The literature shows that project
• What is the level of managers need to understand the
sickness/absence?
• Are the team members Group salience (e.g., power, legitimacy,
knowledgeable and • Are there cultural urgency) of different stakeholder
competent: * differences between team
groups (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997)
• Technical? members? ***
• Have the team members and develop strategies for stakeholder
• Business?
• Project management? worked together before? management (Savage, Nix, Carlton, &
• Do the team members have • Do the team members Blair, 1991), as well as practical tech-
sufficient prior experience: *** trust each other?
niques for identifying and communi-
• Technical? • Are there personality
clashes/rivalry? ** cating with stakeholders (McManus,
• Business?
• Project management? • Does the project team have 2004). However, the data show that any
• Does the project involve a shared vision for the consideration of stakeholder manage-
multiple technical disciplines project? **
ment is incomplete if it begins from the
and languages? ***
standpoint of stakeholders being static,
• Has sufficient training been
conducted? independent entities.
A further practical implication of
being able to describe (if not actually
Note. *Concept appears three to four times in the data. **Concept appears five to eight
measure) complexity is that not all indi-
times in the data. ***Concept appears more than nine times in the data.
viduals are suited to dealing with all
aspects of complexity. For instance, a
Figure 6: Team concepts. virtual team has different organization-
al, stakeholder, and team complexities
from a colocated team. Specifically, a
major issue for virtual teams is the
establishment of trust, which can be
Impact of factor on
project complexity
particularly problematic when team
members have not worked together
High before ( Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999).
Kayworth and Leidner (2000) identify
problems of management that are
unique to virtual teams: “delayed com-
munication, misunderstanding arising
from lack of response, lack of a shared
context in which to interpret messages,
and an inability to monitor team mem-
bers” (p. 192). All of these aspects have
Effective been captured in the dimensions of
region complexity shown. Similarly, projects
Level of with high levels of dynamic complexity
Low
factor in will require managers who are able to
Low High project
deal with such dynamics. Staff selection
and development, therefore, needs to
Figure 7: Suggested general impact of individual concepts on project complexity. consider how individuals cope with the

2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj S23

 Managerial Complexity in Project-Based Operations
PAPERS
challenges presented by all the relevant
dimensions of managerial complexity
for that project.
Finally, a recurring theme in the
data is the dynamics of complexity.
Although change is an inevitable part
of project work, the data show that scale
of change and frequency of change are
important factors in what makes a proj-
ect complex to manage. Traditionally,
the dynamic elements of projects are
managed through processes such as
ongoing risk management, configura-
tion management, and change control
(e.g., OGC, 2005; PMI, 2004). However,
our data show that the nature of change
considered by the existing approaches
is limited and that such programmatic
responses may be inappropriate. The
data suggest that this consideration is
limited and that the interactions of such
change with other changes and other
structural elements cause further com-
plexity. Such a challenge to existing
practice is also demonstrated by Eden
et al. (2000). They showed that changes
may elicit managerial responses that,
although consistent with accepted prac-
tice, exacerbated issues in the form of a
“positive feedback” loop.
Such dissatisfaction with traditional
requirements engineering and com-
mand-and-control project management
strategies has led to an interest in agile
project management approaches.
Agility has been defined as “the ability
to create and respond to change”
(Highsmith & Cockburn, 2001), a defini-
tion that reflects the idea of a project as
agent for change rather than passive ser-
vant of the organization (and supports
the idea of embedded action). Software
development projects have been at the
forefront of the agile movement
and reflected in methods such as
extreme programming (XP) and Scrum
(Highsmith, 2002). In agile projects, the
focus is on delivering working function-
ality rather than delivering against proj-
ect plan tasks. Rather than plan the
entire project, a vision is set and plan-
ning is conducted in intense microcy-
cles, often as short as a week in duration
S24 2008 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
but of no more than 30 days. This adap-
tive process allows the project team to
explore alternative paths and for the
requirements to emerge from a collabo-
ration of developer and user. Particularly
in turbulent business environments, the
adaptive approach to software project
management is gaining in popularity
and has been applied more generally to
project management (Highsmith, 2004).
This implicit acceptance of the dynamic
and interdependent character of ele-
ments of complexity is consistent with
the expanded model of managerial
complexity proposed here.
Summary and Conclusions
The data presented in this article have
challenged the current limitations of
one key aspect of project processes,
what makes projects complex or diffi-
cult to manage. Managerial complexity
is seen to have a wide and diverse set of
meanings. This has demonstrated that
the existing interpretations of complex-
ity in the project environment have
been partial at best.
The MODeST model shows what
makes a project complex to manage, and
both dynamic and interactive elements
of complexity have been identified.
From a practical perspective,
the findings provide a framework to
challenge the existing dominant
paradigms—accepted practices and
the bodies of knowledge. They are
shown to be partial in their ability to
deal with complexity, focusing on one
element only of this construct. In par-
ticular, the conceptualization of stake-
holder management, manager and
team selection, and dynamism are inad-
equate. Agile and related approaches to
managing projects appear to be consis-
tent with the expanded model of com-
plexity proposed here.
There are considerable implica-
tions for teaching here. The notion of
one-size-fits-all has been rejected in
various competency models, and we
see that there is considerable poten-
tial for more targeted educational
efforts if the difficulty of the manage-
rial task can be more precisely
defined. The potential exists for the
frameworks to be developed to allow
this to happen.
Areas for further research include:
• refining the concepts in Figures 2–6
and highlighting which are the key
drivers in complexity as perceived by
project managers;
• determining whether a quantification
of complexity is feasible;
• exploring the nature of the key con-
cepts further to determine the range
of influences on overall complexity
and whether the U curve of Figure 7 is
generalizable;
• exploring the dynamic relationships
between the three dimensions of
complexity (project, organization,
stakeholders), possibly using coevolu-
tionary theory (Kauffman, 1993);
• exploring the possibility of managing
complexity;
• reframing the role of the project man-
ager as embedded participant and
considering management strategies
in a complex environment;
• defining project success and failure in
a complex environment (going beyond
time, cost, and functionality to a
broader notion of project as interven-
tion in a complex environment); and
• investigating how the bodies of
knowledge are made intelligently con-
tingent using complexity as a key vari-
able for determining the nature of
that contingency. ■
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International Journal of Project University of Bath. He worked in information sys-
Management, 11, 269–273. tems development in industry for 15 years, dur-
Winch, G. (1994). Managing produc- ing which time he was employed by a
tion: Engineering change and stability. large US software firm and as a consultant. In
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 1992, he left industry to join the University of
Salford, where he completed a PhD in systems
Xia, W., & Lee, G. (2004). Grasping the
thinking and information system quality.
complexity of IS development projects.
His current research interests include
Communications of the ACM, 47(5),
complex systems theory and social networks,
69–74.
information system development, and
e-commerce quality. He has published the
Harvey Maylor is center director of the books Data Modelling for Information Systems
International Center for Program Management at (1996) and Developing Web Information
Cranfield School of Management in the United Systems (2002).
Kingdom and lately program director for
Cranfield’s MSc program in program and project
management. He is the author of a best-selling
Stephen Carver,BSc, MSc, Ceng, EurIng, AMBA,
management book and is actively engaged in a
MAPM, is a lecturer in project management at
number of funded research projects and net-
Cranfield School of Management, UK. He has
works. He has developed courses and taught
lectured and consulted worldwide, including
program and project management, operations
Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, and
management, and research methods at the
Far East, and appears regularly in the media
University of Bath, United Kingdom; Cardiff
and on TV. After graduating, he worked for 7
Business School, Wales, United Kingdom; NIM-
years in the oil business, when it was at its
BAS, Holland and Germany; Copenhagen
height. During this time, he learned how to
Business School, Denmark; Warwick Business
lead and motivate teams. At 29, he was spon-
School, United Kingdom; and Kasetsart
sored by his US company to undertake an
University, Bangkok, Thailand. He has published
many books and journal articles on project
MBA. While there, he was persuaded to nego-
tiate a year away from the oil business, in
management. In addition, he was an investiga-
order to be project manager for Virgin. The idea
tor on the Engineering and Physical Sciences
was to build “a floating Harrods” in the world’s
Research Council–funded network Rethinking
biggest four-masted clipper ship and then
Project Management and Understanding Project
send the whole thing over to the US. There fol-
Complexity with colleagues from Bath. He has
lowed several years working directly for the
worked with organizations from both public and
CEO of a US multinational as head of strategic
private sectors as a trainer and consultant
program management where he was initiated
(including McKinseys, Transport for London,
into the world of mega projects, program man-
Babcock Marine, QinetiQ, Network Rail, U.K.
agement, strategy, mergers, acquisitions,
research councils, and numerous SMEs) and
takeovers, and handling the media. He then
has received funding for his work in project
set up his own project management consul-
management and new product development
tancy and training company and was quickly
from industry, the U.K. government, and the
hired by some of the top international compa-
European Commission.
nies. His client list now reads like the
FTSE/Dow top 100. He was asked by his old
Richard Vidgen is professor of information sys- MBA school to teach project management and
tems in the School of Management at the corporate communications.