LEADING LARGE COMPLEX PROJECTS

Project management has been important to many types of missions, projects, and activities for many years; however, it has been especially critical to the success of large complex projects across decades and centuries.  Large complex projects span the globe across all industries and sectors. They also span concepts, product design, development, manufacturing, operations, and logistics, etc. Products may include hardware, software, services, product support, systems, and systems of systems, etc.

The primary focus of this course will be around project leadership as projects are planned and executed (project management).  The course will start by recognizing the need and benefits of project management for large complex global projects, explore characteristics of project managers, and study the commonality and differences in types of projects.  The course will continue with understanding the essential capabilities of project management, and analyze the variations in project lifecycles. The course will address managing risk throughout the project lifecycle, controls, and performance measurement, and maximizing the use of knowledge.  Lastly, the course will visualize the future of projects and project management structure and core capabilities.

Our fundamental goal is to better prepare leaders for large complex global projects.  This will be gained via readings; real-world case studies; and study, research, analysis, and exploration by the students.  Therefore, the course will require students to engage in reflection, discussion, activities, and assignments aimed at personal unlearning and learning.  The assignment and class discussions will be quite provocative to drive maximum learning.