Making Sense of Wicked Projects

SUMMARY Standard and accepted approaches to project management are based upon the assumption that a set of defined processes and tools will provide reliable and useful guidelines for most projects, most of the time. However project environments are becoming increasingly complex and chaotic, in which case standard approaches will not be adequate. Projects associated with spatial information, land management and sustainability are no exception. Where there are projects with behavioural complexity there will be wicked problems that cannot be solved – only contained – resulting in wicked projects. This paper examines the challenge of how best to respond to the problem of managing wicked projects. It argues that the use of a systems thinking approach – soft systems methodology – will support collaboration for shared understanding and collective learning. A model has been developed to support this proposition and is applied to systems thinking case study of a sustainable construction project. The approach described in this paper is recommended as a useful way for dealing effectively with wicked problems in complex projects.

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