Standard of Care - The Architecture of Disruption - Project Work & Complexity

Project Work and Complexity.

Can complexity science help us better plan for risk on design and construction projects?

Complexity science theory posits that any ordered human activity; driving to work, taking your team to lunch, scheduling a conference call, creates conditions where activities become uncontrollable. Complexity is defined as complex systems and problems that are are dynamic, unpredictable and multi-dimensional, consisting of a collection of interconnected relationships and parts. Unlike traditional “cause and effect” or linear thinking, complexity science is characterized by non-linearity.

Construction projects are leading offenders in risk. Time and cost overruns seem like requirements, built into the project, and assigned activities which are then ticked off when achieved. 

Why?

It turns out that the answer is complex. 

Understanding and implementing tools that address the underlying science of complexity on your design and construction project can help you continue to nudge it forward. 

Complexity is the condition that arises where a collection of objects and activities are competing for limited resources. These could be drivers and cars on your work commute, or it could be trying to plan a group lunch at a popular restaurant, trying to buy a house in any large city, or trying to design and build a large project -a bridge, a school, a hospital.

The requirements for creating a complex system are.

1. Collection of many interacting objects or agendas (activities).

2. These activities are affected by feedback or memory.

3. Activities adapt their strategies to feedback and memory

4. System is open (to outside influences)

5. As a result, new unplanned activities arise without control which results in a ..

6. Complicated mix of order and disorder

This could be a spec list for every design and construction project. 

Actually, they should be.

However, we try to manage our complex systems through controls. And if that doesn’t work, we layer on even more controls. These controls work by measuring the variance between resources and how they affect schedule and cost. These tools do not address the underlying system complexity. 

Existing tools for control include P6 scheduling, Pay Application Review, and ongoing project management tools like meeting minutes, Owner, Architect, and Contractor (OAC) meetings. 

To actively manage complexity, the design and construction team should focus on the six requirements listed above. 

1. Collection of many interacting objects and agendas (activities).

In construction, individual groups form into separate teams. These teams focus on their needs and agendas, mostly without regard to the activities of the other self-forming teams. To help mitigate this, the owner should create agreements along with co-located spaces which force agendas and activities together.

2. These activities are affected by feedback or memory.

Separate teams protect themselves. Change the feedback loop to reinforce aligned groups and shared behavior. IPD does this well in regard to creating one aligned group that is trying to build the project. 

3. Activities adapt to feedback and memory. 

By aligning teams, new feedback loops and reinforcement goals are created. These create protection layers which allow mistakes to be uncovered and shared, and activities adjusted. 

4. The System is open to outside influences.

On a complex project, actors adjust their actions on outside influences. Team members come and go, new requirements are overlaid on top of existing conditions. Weather and other unforeseen conditions limit predictability. As a result, contingency funding and planning are established at the project’s beginning, to help limit variance. 

5. How to plan and deal with New and unplanned activities as a result of items 1 to 4, and encourage the stem to be more…

6. ordered than disordered.

Item 6 identifies that there is order within a complex system. Our challenge is to find it, nurture it, and multiply it. Activities within a complex system respond to feedback, creating responsive memories that act, interact, and react accordingly to internal and external inputs to the system. 

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Cliff Moser, AIA, is the author of Architecture 3.0: The Disruptive Design Practice Handbook, the BIM in Design and Construction chapter of the Handbook of Construction Management, and BIM Disruption 2016, The Disruption of Interoperability and Transportation Disruption 2016. He works for Stanford Healthcare.