Reduce Complexity or Build Capability
If your project isn’t going well, it’s likely that your capability is insufficient for the complexity you are taking on.
When this happens, you have two clear options: either
1. reduce the complexity to the level you can deliver or
2. build the capability to match the situation.
Reducing complexity normally means narrowing the immediate scope or reducing the amount that occurs in parallel, both of which will extend the timeframe and likely restrict what you deliver.
If you choose to build capability, make sure it is relevant for the nature of the complexity that you face. There is no point adding more rigour to your planning if the project is emergent and still changing every day.
Understanding Complexity and Capability
The place where your project's complexity and your team's capability align is where delivery competence exists.
There are three places you can be on the intersection of complexity and capability: Danger Zone where the complexity exceeds your capability; Expensive Comfort where you have more capability than you need; and the Ideal Zone where your capability matches the complexity.
The Nature of Complexity
There are a range of models for describing project complexity. As a simple guide, these four questions will give you a sense of where you stand:
Are we trying something we haven’t done before?
Are technical skills required to understand the intricacies and trade-offs for decisions?
Is the direction or approach emergent? Either because it is unknowable at the moment or because it is deeply connected to other elements?
Are there diverging priorities for the players within the project?
The stronger you answer ‘yes’ to these questions, the greater the complexity. Bear in mind that some of the answers only become clear once you’re already underway.
Three Types of Capability
Capability exists across three levels:
Individual: Do the individuals, particularly the leaders, have the right mindsets and skills for the ambiguity you face? Or are they bringing standard approaches regardless of the situation?
Team: Does this team have the ways of operating – curiosity, collaboration, communication – required to manage the level of complexity?
Organisation: These are the processes and methods and ways of working that define how projects are done here.
Activity is not Capability
The capability you build has to match the complexity you face.
A common misstep is over-indexing on project processes. When faced with uncertainty, organisations often respond with more governance, more templates, more tracking.
You might’ve seen this story before: Mobilising effort to establish a Program Management Office with standard data capture and the information rolled up into one single report. It tracks all the projects and highlights variance from the plan.
But this organisational capability is not much use when the projects are emergent and the plans keep changing. Picking the wrong capability to put in place will be a frustrating waste of time and money.
Creating Alignment
So if you are in the Danger Zone, the question becomes: do you increase capability or reduce complexity?
It's usually easier to reduce complexity in the short term by narrowing the scope or phasing the work.
The trap many fall into is that they stop at reducing the complexity. If that is all you do then the project will take much longer and not deliver the intended ambition.
The trick is to simplify the project to build momentum, making progress without being sidetracked by the complexity. But do not give up on the original ambition. As momentum builds, you can then invest in ‘building the delivery muscle’ and set your sights on that original goal.
In a large-scale cost improvement program, we deliberately structured the project into three rounds. The first round only aimed for 10% of the savings target but it gave the team a chance to build capability and a way of working that paid off exponentially in subsequent phases.
Something to Ponder
Are you in the ideal zone, or struggling in the danger zone
Are you spending time building the right capability or just adding more process?
Can you reduce complexity without sacrificing ambition?
Are your leaders equipped for the type of ambiguity they face, or just experienced in delivery?
Projects don’t struggle simply because they are complex. They have problems when the setup doesn’t match the challenge.
