Recently I read the book a Team of Teams – New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Army Retired.

Retired General McChrystal is the former commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan and the former commander of the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He is best known for developing and implementing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and for creating a cohesive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the inter-agency operating culture. (This bio was pulled from the McChrystal Group website)

I found an interesting correlation between the management of a large multinational organization and the complex mega-projects we sometimes find ourselves building. Our construction projects operate in a very inter-connected web like environment with lots of opportunities for delays and stops in production and this highlights the importance of accuracy and speed in our decision making and the need to constantly evolve to our changing priorities. This correlation shows the value for a large projects to consider accepting some organizational changes as outlined by this book and embrace our ability to become more nimble, more entrepreneurial regardless of project size so we don’t get bogged down in our decision making process and delay the job. Keeping information flowing quickly and accurately where there are numerous stakeholders providing input and where changes need to be reviewed and approved.  The 21st century is more connected, faster paced, and less predictable than previous eras, if you want your project to be successful we must change how we setup these jobs.

If your projects work in a top down hierarchical leadership or decision making tree you should consider it may be limiting your projects ability to move quickly and achieve project goals. By carefully laying out the plan, keeping your team appraised of project priorities and allowing them to make quick decisions and relaying those decisions up and down the chain to all team members will help keep that information flowing and as a result keep your project moving more effectively. This enhanced form of project management, being more transparent in your priorities along with a decentralized style of decision making will eliminate the funnel or pinch points delaying the progress and momentum forward.

My understanding prior to reading this book on how complicated differed from complex was a realization that most of the projects we typically build are complicated, owners who may not be informed in the building process, multiple stakeholders and decision makers, numerous contractors to coordinate, suppliers and manufacturers getting products to a job for just in time delivery. This is a complicated process, but once this process moves up to possibly hundreds of stakeholders, each with the ability to hinder or stop progress, thousands of workers who may not be informed or up to date in the latest set of priorities, and many 10’s of thousands of support teams working in manufacturing, transportation this process evolves to complex. In this case complex would be defined by: in spite of our increased abilities to track, measure and communicate, the world has become, in many ways, vastly less predictable or simply complex. But by having a clear set of priorities, empowering all levels of employees who are authorized to make decisions and support from senior management will allow this process to be driven along more fluidly.

Part of this improved communication and decision making process depends on the level of trust shared between the teams and their willingness to share resources or information and assist in the identifying of program priorities as opposed to what the individual priority for their team may be at that moment. Once a high level of trust exists between the various business units then you will get a superior level of support from each of the stakeholders needed to make the task go smoother and more efficiently.

In closing if you work on large jobs and manage complex projects you may want to consider reading Team of Teams, by setting clear priorities, streamlining your decision making and supporting your staff in these decisions you will improve your schedule, improve your ability to increase profits and in turn your client want to come back to do additional projects in the future.

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John Hughes

Project Superintendent