Complex project management as complex problem solving: A distributed knowledge management perspective

• Complex projects are unable to be completely specified in advance.
• Complex PM as a practice and a form of complex problem solving (CPS)
• A distributed approach to knowledge management based on organisational CPS
• Organisational CPS creates knowledge that is unspecifiable at the project outset.
• Coordination by a ‘common will of mutual interest’ as a distributed tacit dimension

Traditional project management (PM) privileges planning and downplays the role of learning even in more complex projects. In contrast, this paper draws inspiration from two organisations that were found to have developed complex PM expertise as a form of complex problem solving (CPS), a practice with implicit learning because complex projects are unable to be completely specified in advance ( Hayek, 1945). Central to this view of complex project management as a form of complex problem solving is the governance challenge of knowledge management under uncertainty. This paper proposes that the distributed coordination mechanism which both organisations evolved for this contingency can best be characterised as a ‘common will of mutual interest’, a self-organising process that was fostered around project goals and paced by the project life cycle (Kogut and Zander, 1992). The implications for theory, research, and practice in complex PM knowledge management are examined.