Everything around us can be represented as systems or their components. When we talk about management as a process or phenomenon, we mean that it is also a system.
Let us understand what systems management is and how it differs from other management techniques and approaches.
What is a systems view of project management
A project is a discrete activity with at least one specific goal, timeframe and deliverables. Without time constraints and isolation, business projects would be virtually indistinguishable from other ways of achieving goals.
Here’s a simple example. An existing business has an objective to increase sales. This can be done in a number of ways. The simplest is to delegate the task to lower management, who set subtasks for the heads of specific services and departments, who in turn begin to motivate their subordinates. The whole system starts to make individual efforts to solve the task. One way or another, it works.
However, a more effective way of doing this is to designate the action as a project, appoint a project manager responsible for its implementation and give him or her the appropriate authority. The project manager will analyse the existing situation and processes within the company, any external relationships involved, risks, problems and so on. Based on the information available, the project manager will propose a more effective and efficient solution to achieve the goal.
As a result of such work, a certain separate unit (a project department or a team of multidisciplinary specialists) is actually created, which has a certain pool of narrowly focused tasks. It is this focus and isolation that ensures maximum efficiency.
It is very likely that in order to achieve the specified goal (in our example, an increase in sales), many business processes will have to be changed through the project department within the whole organisation. But that is another story.
How do you manage the chaos of a project?
As the project starts with only one goal, all processes and management systems have to be built from scratch.
Because of the high level of risk and the lack of a clear end picture, many variables remain unknown. In such circumstances, planning is an attempt to stabilise the chaos.
But even for this situation, effective management methods have been developed: iterative, agile, cascading and many others. We have already written in detail about different management methodologies in the article Top 10 Project Management Methodologies.
But all of these approaches have strengths and weaknesses. Some are only suitable for certain types of projects, designed exclusively for strong teams; others need to be implemented; others are based on complex frameworks, and so on.
Such a variety of requirements and implementations is unacceptable in projects where the outcome should be as predictable as possible.
The solution is self-explanatory — try to predict everything.
But how can you do this when there are so many unknown factors, as well as significant and not-so-significant risks, and new directives?
First of all, you need to analyse all the possible and most important courses of action and include them all in the final plan. Yes, it will be tedious, but it will be systematic, taking into account virtually every possible nuance.
Definition
The systemic view of project management is a management approach that considers all possible management issues and tasks during planning, developing optimal business processes, integration, communication and other aspects that contribute to increasing the efficiency of project implementation (in achieving the set goals).
It sounds long and unspecific, but the system approach has specifics. There are more than 40 typical business processes that are adapted to a specific situation after a thorough preliminary analysis.
System Project Management
The management system model works with the following categories of objects:
- Management subjects — i.e. human resources, but the subjects of management will not necessarily be employees and/or managers, it includes other subjects: customers, investors, contractors and other so-called project stakeholders.
- Management objects — this category includes all tangible and intangible resources involved in the management process: programmes, systems, etc.
- Management processes are direct multidirectional effects in the system of subjects and objects, the scheme of connections and influences. For example, management processes include planning and control procedures.
If you look at the root, you will see that processes are at the heart of the management systems approach. And it is for these that ready-made models have been developed (of how they should look and work in any project).
But unlike many flexible methodologies, the systems approach has a rigid description of the project life cycle and a strictly predetermined hierarchical structure of tasks. There is no spontaneous, chaotic list of tasks at the outset to be detailed and worked through as the project progresses. Tasks are defined on the basis of the project objectives and are detailed as necessary — broken down into subtasks until they can be handed over to responsible implementers and controlled (i.e. they have the quality of being measurable).
When is a systemic view of project management effective?
- When it is a large, high-budget project where a negative scenario is highly undesirable.
- When the project must be completed in the shortest possible time and with the best possible result.
- When there is no margin for error.
- When you need to develop a quality regulatory framework for the project that ensures adequate integration with external systems.
- When you have no off-the-shelf solutions to achieve the goals you have set, or when the available methodologies cannot help you implement the project you have been entrusted with.
System analysis allows you to assess all risks and possible scenarios, including negative ones, in advance. It is the systematic approach that ensures high quality planning later on, because you have specifics.
It is a trump card up your sleeve. To control chaos, you need to analyse it and model different approaches to managing it.
Comprehensive analysis allows you to select or develop optimal management processes, identify key stakeholders, identify risks, etc.
What stages of the project lifecycle can there be in systems management?
Since this management approach assumes that the project passes through certain states, its life cycle in systems management is divided into the following stages:
- Initialisation
- Planning
- Work organisation
- Control
- Analysis and Adjustment
- Project Closure
This cycle is similar to the stages of the waterfall methodology and the classic management approach.
What management functions does the systems approach imply?
The Systems View identifies the following categories of processes that can be managed:
- The subject matter of the project.
- Project cost (its budget, costs, etc.).
- Time (implementation dates, milestones, delivery dates, etc., more about project duration management).
- Quality (of products, services, etc.).
- Risks (about project risk management).
- Change.
- People (human resources and their skills).
- Communication (internal and external interactions).
- Contracts.
To better allocate human and time resources, you need specialised software — a meeting and task planner or task manager.
How effective is the systemic view
This method of project planning and management can be very effective. However, it is also the most labour-intensive, as it involves a large amount of preparatory work. Sometimes the system planning can take more time than the project implementation itself.
Therefore, this approach is only justified in cases where there is no room for error. Usually these are large infrastructure projects with a large scope and serious budgets.
For small projects, where the level of detail and guaranteed results are not so important, but the time for implementation is very limited, it is best to use agile methodologies (modern practices).
