Understanding Complexity: The Environmental Dimension
Lonnie Pacelli is an Accenture/Microsoft veteran with four decades of learnings under his belt. He frequently writes and speaks on leadership, project management, work/life balance, and disability inclusion. Reach him at [email protected] and see more at ProjectManagementAdvisor.com.
I recently read through PMI’s Pulse of the Profession® 2026 – Driving Success in Complex Projects. It’s a nicely put together, concise view of complexity dimensions, their drivers, and how project professionals and senior leaders see complexity root causes.
The report stratifies complexity into three dimensions:
- The Environmental Dimension
- The Organizational Dimension
- The Human Dimension
In my view, this is a sound first-tier stratification of complexity and, while the drivers may be different (think AI not existing 30 years ago), the buckets stand the test of time.
In my four decades, I can point to initiatives where material disruption from one or more of these dimensions added to an initiative’s complexity—or in some cases, completely shut the initiative down.
In this three-article series, I will dig deeper into each dimension and use real-life war stories and lessons learned using a fictional consumer services company I’ll call Conset.
To that end, let’s focus on the first dimension.
Environmental complexity is the external forces—AI, digital transformation, regulatory flux, geopolitical shifts, supply chain and third-party collaborators—that impact the project from outside and often reshape the context faster than teams can plan for. Environmental complexity brings external disruptions&…
Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.
|
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." - Mel Brooks |
