My project complexity model -- one year after I initially had the idea. The purpose is to help Project Managers define what processes and techniques should be applied to their particular project. The model is coded and working, but "not ready for prime time."

1. Project Complexity One year later David A. Maynard MBA, PMP January, 2010

2. Ice Storm – Winter of 2008 – My Front Yard (Lilly Pods ) Complexity occurs all around us 2

3. Why do you keep harping about project complexity? 3 You’re starting to scare us

4. Choose the most correct answer Kathi made me do it You have a mild case of OCD You need the PDUs The question “What processes or tools should I use for this project?” comes up all the time 4

5. Lets review some answers to the question 5

6. This question comes up in EVERY Project Management class Connelly Library – Moore College of Art and Design 6

7. Some possible answers All of the PMBOK guide The parts of the guide I Iike the best Priorities change every day, we don’t have time for this Whatever Prince2 template software says What my boss tells me We use all the templates in ‘Method 123’ software Whatever Lynn says What I used the last time 7 Only Microsoft Project We don’t use processes in our company My bosses don’t know anything about managing projects, so I can get away with anything We use all the templates in MPMM software What I’ve read about on Gantthead.com The least amount possible

8. Is there an better answer? 8

9. The time has arrived for a new approach 9

10. The best answer It all depends upon the relative complexity of the project 10

11. The search for complexity information led to several documents… 11

12. And, there are new texts on the topic since last year… 12

13. The state of project management We should have better guidance about what processes & tools to apply to a particular project 13

14. My Goal From Last Year “Build a model and let it learn from us” 14

15. The Proposed Model Development 15 Changed

16. The Model 16

17. Some people doubt this could work 17

18. Consider psychological inventories Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MTBI) Questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions DiSC Four quadrant behavioral model based to examine the behavior of individuals in their environment Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness 18

19. 19 Are those tests perfect? Are they often-times close? Are they useful?

20. Enough!What about the online model? 20

21. I’ve got it working 21 Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

22. What / where? It’s written in Perl / CGI with MySQL and is running on a bit of my personal web space. But, it’s not ready for prime-time yet. 22

23. Perl? Developed by Larry Wall, a linguist working as a systems administrator for NASA, in 1987 Perl is nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of programming languages" due to its flexibility and adaptability. Extract of the Complexity Model 23

24. Implementation The user sees a series of HTML forms It appears just like a survey that we’ve all done many, many times. Best browser support Most familiar interface Little confusion Rather boring I’m looking for a way to make it more interesting 24

25. Graphics I think a dashboard would be nice From my 38 year old Porsche (I’m the first owner!) 25

26. The inputs to the model 8 dimensions of project complexity were determined by “sitting and thinking” plus reading the reference texts One of the new books agrees with me! There are many factors which affect the dimensions Not all factors apply to all projects The factors may all have different weights 26

27. Dimensions and Factors 27

28. Dimensions of complexity 28

29. Factors We discussed the factors for each dimension last year No changes were made THEORY: As long as the most significant factors are included, the software should be able to produce a reasonable result I want to add a way so that users can add factors as they see fit 29

30. Weighting Each dimension has a dedicated HTML form Each dimension can be weighted via an input to the form Each factor can be weighted individually 30

31. Asymptote 31 The intermediate answer is ‘normalized’ and established from 0 to 100 Score High Complexity Low Complexity

32. I’m starting to not like that methodThere’s a better way! 32 Statistics

33. 33 There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. -- Mark Twain

34. New Way: Regression analysis A techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables The focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and independent variables I hope to use a regression method in which the predictor variables are measured with error All of this goes into the database 34

35. I hit a snag in one area Procurement You can have complex project, but no procurement You can have a simple project, with lots of procurement And! The project Manager may not be involved in procurement anyway The procurement tools & templates are not directly related to project complexity 35

36. For instance A complexity score of 75 doesn’t mean you need to use a detailed procurement plan – if you’re doing only software development But it might! If you needed to buy servers, workstations… whatever. 36

37. Walk-Through 37

38. Green Kryptonite 38 The complexity model

39. Non-secure entry 39 The help text may need improvement

40. Entry Page Thoughts Should add user account mechanism Would be nice to have a summary page of previous uses available 40 Hacker paradise

41. Security (not) No user login No IP recording Not Russian teenage hacker proof Doesn't implement my “hacker score” code 41 Real Russian Hacker

42. Business Area? Right now the business area input is equally weighted for all results It’s clear that different business areas will have different complexity multipliers Healthcare Automotive Banking.. This will become a factor as the model ‘learns’ 42

43. D1: Corporate Environment 43

44. Everything defaults to “medium” 44

45. 45 Adjust the dimension’s weight

46. 46 Select each factor’s weight

47. MySQL debugging lines The green text (green = good) on the top of each page is the SQL statements. If they turn red, the database didn’t update 47

48. D2: Project Problem & Solution Each mind map area was converted to an HTML form 48

49. (some factor selections made) 49 Dimension 2 of 8

50. 50 Dimension 3 of 8

51. (Some selections Made) 51 Dimension 4 of 8

52. (Some selections Made) Dimension 5 of 8 52

53. (Some selections Made) Dimension 6 of 8 53

54. (Some selections Made) Dimension 7 of 8 54

55. (Some selections Made) Dimension 8 of 8 55

56. Risks and Opportunities 56

57. And the answer is… 57

58. Answer number 1: LOW 58

59. Answer number 2:What templates / processes are recommended(Greyed out are not recommended) 59 More

60. But wait! There’s more! This is the page that will allow the model to “learn” Users can click on and off templates for their environment The system will remember those choices and adjust the weighting This portion of the code is not complete 60

61. There are a few bugs to fix 61

62. Future Work Improve security & user interface Install templates for download Finish the “learning” capability Email results (with links) to the user Create a better graphic of the complexity 62

63. 63 ‘RADAR’ plots are commonly used for complexity I have some issues with this type of chart What do the areas between the axes mean? For instance, the ‘dot’ implies a combination of Risks / Opportunities and corporate environment

64. Soliciting Input Do I need to make it interesting to use? What about “adaptive” forms? Specialized processes or templates? 64

65. Ice Storm, 2008 – My front yard (Birch Tree) 65