Measuring the Project Management Complexity: The Case of Information Technology Projects

Table 1

IPMA Complexity assessment System for IPMA B (IPMA 4-L-C) [15].

Criteria	Description of the criteria	High Complexity	Low Complexity
(1) Objectives, Assessment of Results	Mandate and Objective	uncertain, vague	defined, obvious
	Conflicting objectives	many conflicts	few conflicts
	Transparency of mandate and objectives	hidden	quite transparent
	Interdependence of objectives	very interdependent	quite independent
	Number and assessment of results	large, multidimensional	low, monodimensional
(2) Interested Parties, Integration	Interested parties, lobbies	numerous parties	few parties
	Categories of stakeholders	many different	few uniform categories
	Stakeholder interrelations	unknown relations	few and well known relations
	Interests of involved parties	divergent interests	comparable interest
(3) Cultural and social context	Diversity of context	diverse	homogeneous
	Cultural variety	multicutural, unknown	uniform, well known
	Geographic distances	distant, distributed	close, concentrated
	Social span	large, demanding	small, easy to handle
(4) Degree of innovation, general conditions	Technological degree of innovation	unknown technology	known and proven technology
	Demand of creativity	innovative approach	repetitive approach
	Scope for development	large	limited
	Significance on public agenda	large public interest	public interest low
(5) Project structure, demand for coordination	Structures to be coordinated	numerous structures	few structures
	Demand of coordination	demanding, elaborate	simple, straighforward
	Structuring of phases	overlapping, simultaneous	sequential
	Demand for reporting	multidimensional, comprehensive	uni-dimensional, common
(6) Project organisation	Number of interfaces	many	few
	Demand for communication	indirect, demanding, manifold	direct, not demanding, uniform
	Hierarchical structure	multidimensional, matrix structure	uni-dimensional, simple
	Relations with permanent organisations	intensive mutual relations	few relations
(7) Leadership, teamwork, decisions	Number of sub-ordinates	many, large control span	few, small control span
	Team structure	dynamic team structure	static team structure
	Leadersship style	adaptive and variable	constant and uniform
	Decision-making processes	many important desicions	few important decisions
(8) Resources incl. finance	Availability of people, material, etc.	uncertain, changing	available, known
	Financial resources	many investors and kinds of resources	one investor and few kinds of resources
	Capital investment	large (relative to project of the same kind)	low (relative to project of the same kind)
	Quantity and diversity of staff	high	low
(9) Risk and opportunities	Predictability of risks and opportunities	low, uncertain	high, quite certain
	Risk probability, significance of impacts	high risk potential, large impact	low risk potential, low impact
	Potential of opportunities	limited options for actions	many options for actions
	Options for action to minimise risks	large potential of opportunities	low potential of opportunities
(10) PM methods, tools and techniques	Variety of methods and tools applied	numerous, manifold	few, simple
	Application of standards	few common standards applicable	common standards applicable
	Availability of support	no support available	much support available
	Proportion of PM to total project work	high percentage	low percentage