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Social Techniques and Complexity

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Project Management at the Edge of Chaos

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Abstract

In this chapter we forge a bridge between our fundamental assumptions and beliefs, the “Big Picture” which underlies our project management approach, and our understanding of complexity and the related consequences.

It’s a pity thoughts don’t have names, isn’t it? You could call them up, and they’d come and lie down at your feet, crawling on their bellies.

Fred Vargas, A Climate of Fear, English by Siân Reynolds

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Translated by the authors: “Resist ‘process losses’ with social techniques”.

  2. 2.

    Translated by the authors: “Complexity in consultancy projects”.

  3. 3.

    GPM is the German Project Management Association, member of IPMA, International Project Management Association.

  4. 4.

    Translation by the authors.

  5. 5.

    Think of a cooking pot filled with water, in which the temperature difference between the lid and the base is the control parameter.

  6. 6.

    If the temperature difference is sufficiently large, thermal convection emerges in the cooking pot, and thus a macroscopic flow pattern. The macroscopic flow pattern (stable convection current) is the order parameter and “forces” all flow particles to follow this pattern. Thereby, a pattern is enforced.

  7. 7.

    State is a word that is often associated with statics. We do not understand state in this sense, but adhere to the term from physics, where it is understood as a dynamic collection of properties.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IFST – Institute for Social Technologies GmbH, Stolberg, Germany

    Alfred Oswald

  2. BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany

    Jens Köhler

  3. Weinheim, Germany

    Roland Schmitt

Authors
  1. Alfred Oswald
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  2. Jens Köhler
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  3. Roland Schmitt
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Oswald, A., Köhler, J., Schmitt, R. (2018). Social Techniques and Complexity. In: Project Management at the Edge of Chaos. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48261-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48261-2_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-48260-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-48261-2

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