Managing Construction Projects: Developing Complexity into Complicatedness

Abstract

Construction projects are understood as being complex and therefore in need of support through adequate tools to be successfully managed. Among others, the Building Information Model (BIM) is expected to provide a modern and powerful toolset allowing for reliable prediction of the respective development and behaviour. Based on Theory of Systems, the term of complexity in fact matches the principal capabilities of an object-oriented information system where e.g. the Building Information Modelling rests upon. However, any complex system tends to instable behaviour allowing principally for no reliable prediction, in particular in the single run required for unique projects with no possibility to rearrange processes without major losses. Correspondingly, experienced Construction Managers are judging the complexity of projects as a crucial obstacle to efficient execution but declare complexity as not measureable, thus as degree of unmanageability. Therefore, the inherent complexity of interdisciplinary projects needs to be reduced, i.e. transformed into complicatedness, not reducing the effort of elaboration but allowing for stable solutions. In order to achieve such a transfer, the inherent heterogeneity is utilized tracking down the strictness and linearity of the internal and external system borders, thus, investigating the separability of the adjacency matrices. These mainly topological considerations lead to criteria forming substructures finally allowing for predictable behaviour of the project structures with limited uncertainty. Therefrom, we expect some significantly improved understanding of the cybernetics of projects and consequently advanced possibilities in shaping and establishing activity-based risk management, which is crucial to nowadays construction and real estate projects.