High project complexity is often associated with poor project performance. Some practitioners have learned, at their expense, that a lack of awareness and management of project complexity can be disastrous. This has motivated researchers and practitioners to develop strategies to manage complexity. However, the solutions proposed tend to offer local strategies and fall short of, e.g., addressing project complexity from a structural perspective. Indeed, project structural complexity refers to the interdependences between the multiple elements of the project domains (i.e., product design, engineering, installation, use) and local strategies for managing complexity fail to consider interdependences across domains. Therefore, this paper proposes the lean project delivery system (LPDS)-multi-domain-matrix (MDM) framework as a more holistic approach to the visualization and modeling of structural complexity on projects. The framework was tested on a facility plant upgrade project delivered through a design-bid-build process. The framework helped those involved gain a better understanding of the root causes of the project breakdowns. Specifically, it points out that traditional project management (PM) methods encourage project teams to focus on contract deliverables (programming documents, design drawings, shop drawings, installation milestones) rather than to collaboratively understand the project structural complexity. Conversely, the framework shows how lean construction is fit to manage complex projects.
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