In one of my previous posts I looked at 6 best practices for dealing with complex projects, as set out (and interpreted by me) in PMI’s Navigating Project Complexity guide. There are actually 11 best practices detailed in that document. Here’s my take on the remaining 5 tools and techniques that you can use to increase your chances of success on complex projects.

1. Focus on change management

Projects always involve an element of change, and complex projects tend to involve more than others. By their nature, you don’t always know what you are going to deliver at the outset. Requirements tend to flex as the project progresses and stakeholders firm up their ideas.

As a result, you need excellent change management processes, and the discipline to apply them every time.

2. Create a resilient team

Constant changes can affect the morale of your project team. I know I’ve worked in environments where the team has become disheartened because there is a constant stream of changes, and they feel as if they aren’t ever good enough or ever going to reach the end. That’s where resilience comes in.

Build resilience in your team. It’s an easy thing to write but a hard thing to do and it does depend on how open and self-aware they are. As a project leader, there are things you can do to boost their resilience and ensure they bounce back from changes. For example:

  • Make sure the change process is objective, and that changes have clear benefits.
  • Flex your own style so that as a leader you model responsive and flexible behavior.
  • Use technology to boost your efficiency as a team.
  • Communicate often, and up and down the chain of command.

·         Set up some team building events which help boost levels of trust in the team. The more trusting your team, the more likely it is that they will turn to each other when they are struggling and that they will boost each other up again when they feel low.

3. Watch out for the small stuff

Watch out for the small things that may be sign that something more significant is happening. For example, tasks that drift early are most likely a sign that they won’t hit their due date. Don’t be hopeful and optimistic: be data-driven and ruthless when it comes to establishing progress and challenging status reports. If you need more time on a task, better that you know early so you can make other adjustments.

Look out for people not attending meetings or responding to emails in a timely fashion. This can signify that they have other projects on the go that are taking priority (especially if they are not full time on your project, for example a supplier). Don’t let that slip: talk to them about their involvement and make sure that you fully understand where they are coming from. They may well have more (to them) important projects. Again, it’s better that you are honest with your whole team and know this so that you can plan around it.

Techniques like earned value analysis can help you spot early problems, as can dashboards and reports from your project management software.

4. Avoid over-simplifying things

Your project plan might amount to thousands of lines, but still project managers’ fall into the trap of oversimplifying things.

Complex programs don’t fall into neat boxes and the simple solution isn't always the right solution. Equally, the simple cause may not always be the right cause: you may have to look deeper to uncover the root cause through detailed analysis techniques like the 5 Whys or Ishikawa diagrams.

Remember that project reports only include high level information for the most part. With the leading Viewer for Microsoft project files you can view 8 different project reports as presented in Microsoft Project. A document that shows the top 5 risks may not flag that the sixth risk on the list (that didn't make it on to the report) is burning red and ready to derail the project.

Always try to understand the context of data and decisions to avoid oversimplifying and missing important information.

5. Actively reflect on the project

Reflective thinking is essentially making sure you are doing an adequate lessons learned exercise throughout the life of the project. Spend time reflecting on what you have achieved and what is still to come. Think about how you can apply what you have learned to future phases of the project.

Taking time out of the busyness to reflect on the project will also help you consolidate the information. Often we rush through projects due to their nature and deadlines, but by carving out a few hours a month to actively reflect, study progress, ask questions and learn lessons we can be better project managers.