Managing Complex, High Risk Projects

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Project Management Traditional Principles

   • Franck Marle, Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal

   Pages 1-52

3. Limits of Traditional Project Management Approaches When Facing Complexity

   • Franck Marle, Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal

   Pages 53-74

4. Assessing Complexity of Projects

   • Franck Marle, Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal

   Pages 75-118

5. Assessing Vulnerability of Complex Projects

   • Franck Marle, Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal

   Pages 119-144

6. Changing Project Structure to Mitigate Its Complexity

   • Franck Marle, Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal

   Pages 145-203

7. Adapting Project Organization to Its Complexity

   • Franck Marle, Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal

   Pages 205-273

Maximizing reader insights into project management and handling complexity-driven risks, this book explores propagation effects, non-linear consequences, loops, and the emergence of positive properties that may occur over the course of a project.


This book presents an introduction to project management and analysis of traditional project management approaches and their limits regarding complexity. It also includes overviews of recent research works about project complexity modelling and management as well as project complexity-driven issues. 


Moreover, the authors propose their own new approaches, new methodologies and new tools which may be used by project managers and/or researchers and/or students in the management of their projects. These new elements include project complexity definitions and frameworks, multi-criteria approaches for project complexity measurement, advanced methodologies for project management (propagation studies to anticipate potential behaviour of the project, and clustering approaches to improve coordination between project actors) and industrial case studies (automotive industry, civil engineering, railroad industry, performing arts,…) and exercises (with their solutions) which will allow readers to improve and strengthen their knowledge and skills in the management of complex and (thus) risky projects.

• Complexity and Risk
• Managing Complex High Risk Projects
• Non-linear Consequences
• Project Management
• Propagation Effects
• Vulnerability in Decision Making

“The book … can serve as a trigger point to initiate more research by academics and further commitment from the industry to establish a relation, if any, between the project complexity and the project performance. … This book is a must read for project managers who want to manage a complex project. In fact, based on my experience, most of the large projects fall under the area of “complex” project and hence their project managers should also read this book.” (Aditya Lal, SAP, blogs.sap.com, May 09, 2019)

• Laboratoire Genie Industriel, Ecole Centrale Paris, Chatenay-Malabry, France

  Franck Marle, Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal

Franck MARLE (MSc of industrial engineering, Ecole Centrale Lyon, 1997; PhD in project management, Ecole Centrale Paris, 2002) is associate professor in project management at Ecole Centrale Paris for 14 years. He was founder and head of the Project Management Research Group in the Industrial Engineering Laboratory, now transformed into the Risk Management Team. He made his PhD at Ecole Centrale Paris in 2002 about interactions modeling in PSA Peugeot-Citroën internal projects. He is now conducting research works about risk modeling in projects, interactions modeling and assessment, and decision-making in project and multi-projects context.

Ludovic-Alexandre VIDAL holds a Ph.D. in industrial engineering. He works as a researcher and teacher (assistant professor) at Ecole Centrale Paris. His research interests are  project management, risk management and complex systems. His professional experience includes different industrial domains such as energy, civil engineering, NGOs and the performing arts industry.

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