"Chunking" in a Complex Project

With the many possible iterations of interlinked activities in a complex Project (okay, I used that wording to make the Project sound more complex), how can we keep up with all of it? How can we, as Project leaders, both lead and "manage" our Project to success when it involves so many complications?

1. Choose a reasonable number of "chunks" of the work.
2. Watch those chunks.
3. As the details are defined and tracked at a detailed level, manage the chunks.

"Chunking" means breaking the Project into relatively large sections. These sections can be selected by the leader or the Team for the specific Project. There could be chunks based on Team locations (the Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Milwaukee teams), when each team carries a portion of the work. Or, they could be more sequential Project definition chunks - initiation, planning, executing, controlling, closing.

Each of these may have its own set of chunks. During "initiation", for example, we might have a group of 5 to 15 critical items or smaller groups of items that we need to watch.

• Initiation
• Team member selection
• Project definition
• Budget finalization
• Schedule initiation
• WBS development
• Procedure development

But, as the Project develops and the definition becomes clearer, we end up with that list or that schedule or that WBS that shows us that 23,591 tasks must happen successfully before the Project is successfully completed. What do we do then? Do we keep the Project going well by keeping tabs on each of the 23,591 items? We can try. Some people do seem to try this. They try to manage a 23,591+ item To Do List. I understand the issue of being "detail oriented". But, as the Project leader, detail orientation at this level will keep us so busy with tiny details that we will miss the overall goal of the Project. We will get distracted by item 26 and 418 and 680 and 2,006...

Then, while we're focused on one of those, many others are still proceeding and something larger may be happening that causes the entire Project to derail.


Now, some will likely argue that we can still watch each detail, because, the sequential nature of most Projects means that 23,591 tasks won't be really happening all at once. Depending on the time available, there could only be 2,000 per month or 1,000 per month, etc. Still too many items to manage. Remember, even if we could manage those items, the interactions lead to the real complexity. If we have many items, the possible combinations of interactions grows exponentially (or factorially!).

1. Start with chunks.
2. Refine the chunks as the Project develops.
3. Keep watching the chunks.

That is a critical part of managing complexity.