New Approach to

Managing Complex Systems

AbstractMany corporations are facing increasing complexity and uncertainty due to new and boundary-spanning technologies and increased variation of customers, markets and organizations, locally and globally. In complex organizations it is crucial to develop efficient problem solving capabilities in organizing tasks in integrated and cross-functional teams with customers and suppliers, modularization of product architecture and design of a lean process particularly when product development is carried out in multi-project settings.

No matter how one organizes the processes into tasks, product architecture into modules, or people into organizations, there will always be interfaces and dependencies between: components and subsystems in the product architecture, between departments in the basic organization, between many different on-going projects, in professional groups, and among individuals who need to share information with others in order to solve problems and produce results. The information is the glue that holds the system together and you have to follow the flow of information.

In this course you will learn about a new approach, Information Driven Management (IDM) and new methods, Dependence Structure Matrix (DSM) and Domain Mapping Matrix (DMM). IDM approach and DSM/DMM methods puts the focus on interdependencies between domains/items such as components in the product architecture, tasks in processes, and people in basic and temporary team settings. Product development is a dynamic process with strong interdependencies between domains such as, customer´s requirements, functional and product specifications, architectural design, manufacturing design, and supply chain design. Each domain both enables and constrains the others and each domain has architecture and logic. Information is the “glue" within and between domains. Therefore, the flow of information within and between domains is crucial in order to solve the problems of organizing teams, designing modular product structures and define lean development and manufacturing processes.

What is the industrial relevance of this course?

In industry in general, and in product development in particular, you have to find ways to manage high level of uncertainty regarding organizational design, process design and product architectural design.

When running product development you must find out who should be in one or another project? How to coordinate actions among people within and between projects? And between projects and the rest of your organization in the multi-project setting?

When making product architectural decisions you must find out how you can integrate new technologies into systems and products, how components are inter-related to each other in order to design the product architecture, modules and work packages.

When making process design you must find out when activities should be outlined in order to achieve high level of concurrency in order to achieve short lead-time, high level of integration among people, departments and your preferred suppliers. Working in MS Project does not help you very much in this respect.

In general, and in product development in particular, four issues are crucial:

Designing integrated organizations and processes: Differentiation and integration of tasks and people across teams, projects, departments, and organizations i.e. supplier integration.

What is the learning outcome?

A new approach will be introduced, Information driven management (IDM) based on Dependence Structure Matrix (DSM) and Domain Mapping Matrix (DMM) approaches.

You will learn how to transform the business portfolio into projects and a purposeful multi-project structure and how to relate projects to basic organizational structure.

You will learn how to increase integration between people within a project, between the project and the basic organizational structure, and between the project and other related projects in a multi-project environment.

You will learn how to make the planning and outlining of activities in your projects in such away to achieve shortest possible lead-time in development by following the logic of the information flow.

You will learn how tasks can be arranged in order to give short lead-time and how to identify iterations in the process.

You will learn how to elaborate the product architecture and how to design integrated work breakdown structure (WBS) and integrated work packages (WP).

Gain experience and knowledge about new methods and tools

New project management methods, Dependence Structure Matrix (DSM) and Domain Mapping Matrix (DMM) are project management tools consisting of a method and a set of soft-ware solutions in a toolbox. IDM is based on DSM and DMM approaches. A number of leading international companies such as Boeing, Ford, Airbus are using DSM and DMM to plan and organize product development more efficient. Also Swedish companies such as Scania and Saab Aerospace have experiences of these methods and tools.

New project management toolbox. To apply IDM in practice you need easy to use supportive soft-ware tools. You will learn how stand alone soft ware solutions can support you: