How to create simplicity in complex projects

The higher up you go in project management, the greater the complexity you deal with, but is the trick to achieving success to make things simple?

Apple’s Steve Jobs once told Business Week that “simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean, to make it simple, but it’s worth it in the end because once you get there you can move mountains.”

We tackled the subject in a recent episode of APM Podcast. “Simplicity is an underestimated value and something that you learn to appreciate as you become more involved with bigger, more complex programmes,” explained Nathan Hellebrand ChPP, Brand and Global Delivery Director at Babcock International Group. “To be able to simplify in a way that gets many stakeholders linked to a project or a programme to a point where they understand what you’re trying to do, and how you’re trying to do it, is key to being able to deliver successful outcomes.”

Mike Hudson ChPP, Interim Strategy Management Director at the National Trust, agreed: “The more complex projects get, the greater the need for simplicity for lots of reasons, but not least for the people who are involved in delivering them. I think it’s vital, and the more senior you get, the more that becomes part of what you can bring to that kind of project and the environment that people are operating in.”
Here are Hudson and Hellebrand’s top pieces of advice on how to make things simpler in your projects.

1. Start with the vision

Hudson said his starting point is always to consider the project’s vision and objectives (especially for a project turnaround). “You can ask some quite simple and straightforward questions about what people think they’re doing and why, and if you get a whole variety of answers, it tells you that you’re not getting the level of cut-through that you want.”

Creating simplicity is also about making sure that team roles are simple and understandable for people, explained Hudson.

2. Ditch it if it’s not adding clarity or value

“When you are starting a project, get a team to focus on this rule: whatever we’re doing, if it’s not adding clarity or value, then it’s likely to be making things more complicated,” said Hellebrand. “Whether it’s governance documents, project plans, terms of reference or whatever, sometimes there’s a tendency to think that we need to write or create more to justify the work. Sometimes that’s not true – actually, less is more.

“Get people to think about that, and make sure it’s something they live and breathe.”

3. There are no silly questions

“Often, if you are thinking it, someone else probably is as well – so there are no silly questions,” said Hellebrand. “Ask if you don’t understand, because if you don’t, we’re not going to make progress. Make people understand that there shouldn’t be any social fear in saying they don’t understand. It is a powerful thing that breeds simplicity.”

4. Be clear on decision rights

Clarity in decision-making is important, too, said Hudson: “What’s the minimum information we need to make a decision, and who has those decision rights?”
Speaking about a programme where things were agreed in one meeting and then undone in a different one, Hellebrand saw that simplicity in decision-making was needed.

“We focused on simplifying the decision rights across the programme so that people had clarity on specifics – on what was within their gift to make a decision on.

“That helped us do two things. It helped simplify the chain and remove some of that confusion or differing of opinions; and it empowered people and allowed them to go faster, because we had a much simpler approach.”

5. Focus on culture (and have courage)

“You may have stakeholders breathing down your neck,” said Hudson, “but actually investing in a bit of simplicity and clarity upfront just helps you go so much faster later. Have courage, I would say.”

Hellebrand advised “focusing on the culture and the behaviour of simplicity as soon as possible. Getting that right will flow through to everything that you do, whether it’s process or tools. Think about whether what we’re doing is adding clarity or value. And if it’s not, is it really helping us simplify how we’re trying to deliver? But if you get the culture right, you’ll eat complexity for breakfast.”

Want more? Listen to APM Podcast’s episode ‘Why Simplicity Matters in Project Management’ on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.