FINDINGS HIGHLIGHTS

        In the interview, 10 Saudi Arabians participated. The participants moved to Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia in the early 2019 and late 2018. For the evaluation, all the interviews and data were recorded and after completion of the analyses, the record was deleted due to ethics guideline. The participants in the interview were engaged with the current projects as well as in the past projects. The impact of their participation in complicated projects was also addressed in the research. The participants of the research were interested in the evaluation of complication in the project management and optimal dealing process. All the participants have previously experienced complicated project, project management and project team membership, and stakeholders. The participants also addressed their behavior according to the situation and how they reacted in different circumstances. One of the participants was confident about his previous experience with complicated projects and he stated all his performance and methods immediately in the questions. The remaining participants discussed the focus and intensity of their involvement in complicated projects. The main question arose in the interview was how to determine and what are the indications of complicated projects. One of the participants had a very different perspective on complicated projects as compared to others. The process to rank a project as a complicated is a relative and different viewpoint for project management. For instance, if a person is familiar with the processes to perform a specific task then the project is not considered complicated for him. For instance, the project is to build a house and an architect know about planning and building the house then the project is not complicated for him. A person having experience in the specific field knows about obstacles and structure of the project so it will be an easy project for him. On the other hand, if a person is unfamiliar with the project then it will be difficult and complicated project for him. We will consider it as a new and unknown process. Sometimes interpretation of the project and their requirements becomes complicated for the participant and stakeholder. The frequent changes make it complicated, but it can be manageable. Chaotic projects are another type that exceeds the ability of a person to manage the situation and circumstances. Such issues occur due to frequent changes in the requirements and stakeholders.  Participants discussed different types of behavior while dealing with complicated projects. The demonstrated different methods such as enough staffing, close monitoring and tracking, and well-organized planning.  However, the cost and expenses are not relevant to this process, but it depends on zero deficit tolerance and time of the market.  Participants often follow project management methodologies to deal with complicated projects. The preparation of the project is fully detailed to reduce complications and obstacles and implementation of master plans required detailed analysis, planning, life cycle, and methods to deal with complication. One of the most significant processes is to use unrestricted communication to achieve highly recognized analysis but the problem is that an adequate test cannot be performed according to the requirements and analysis cannot be reported accordingly. In addition to that, participants deemed experience of dealing with different components of complicated projects quite effective. Another issue is that team members do not communicate at the beginning of the project and they show concern towards challenges. Therefore, at the beginning of the project, people often tend to start with little knowledge and then learn about the processes. In case of facing unknown issues, they prefer to consult with experts to find new ways to face challenging situations. In the interview, top five enablers were included and they are listed below,

Stakeholders

Customer requirements

Division of work

Communication

Organizational changes

The enablers show methods of handling including reduction, elimination, and control. 

        All the participants agreed upon the top 5 complication enablers along with remaining enablers while in this situation when participation was exceptional.  He mentioned that for a different complicated process have correctly some prefix as "exchange of".  He also mentioned that consistency in the process is not a challenge and the complication never increase. Only different changes will induce an impact on the challenges of the project, team member, and demanded a reaction. A complication of the project increases due to the occurrence of certain changes. In a general situation, the interpretation of enablers was different for all the participants but also some intersections were observed. One of the enablers mentioned as customer requirement was different from user requirement, and customer requirement and characteristics can be divided into non-functional and hidden requirements. All the participants agreed that the best option is the elimination of requirements. Because if the scope of the project is defined then it becomes impossible to reduce the issue. In this situation, the only feasible solution is a flexible control attempt. The scope becomes unexplainable as well as uncontrollable by increasing the requirements. According to the participants, the market feasibility is a sub-enabler for the customer requirements and have a significant influence on the scope of the project, product, and processes. The state of art technology usage in the project changes the requirement.

        Stakeholder as a complication enabler was confirmed by participants. Even there are different numbers of tools and methods for handling and analyzing the stakeholders, but it requires an extremely different type of handling. In this process, the analysis was performed at the beginning and never repeated conditions. In case of any changes in stakeholders, organization, and business target gain, the effect is on the higher priority of the project and interest variation. Participants ranked enablers at different levels, some of them considered stakeholders as the most important point. The important component is having a powerful sponsor because it can break the barrier of the project. On the other hand, some participants are stated that all the stakeholders are equal and some of them are not associated with the project, but they should be given a priority. This process enables to distinguish some small fire sources and run the project smoothly. Another enabler "communication" appeared in many projects. It requires proper addressing of advice and task to the team members who don't know about the process. The deliverables in the project are required to be stated clearly. In the absence of subgroups, only a small part of the project becomes more meaningful. The pm standards are used for improvement in communication. If the communication gap is generated between the team members, it can increase the complication of the project.

        The division of work is another enabler in which all the team members take an overview of the task and identify the levels of a higher and lower fit and specify according to their abilities. The project becomes meaningful if the subgroups of the team member are not considered. Possible outcomes in this situation are poorly matched interference and extended timelines. Two important components of work are communications and division, and both have a significant impact on the complication of the project.

All the participants weighted differently for the enabler "organizational changes". Some participants rated like cultural diversity becomes higher for the complication. The cultural diversity is not only associated with different types of cultures, but it also considered habits, languages, the time zone, with religion.

        All of the basic approaches for controlling the complication in the work is discussed by all the participants and all agreed that complication was the first perceived by the project managers. The managers are afraid of any kind of changes and to face any complication in the project. Managers block problems and controlling practice to find solutions they use a combination of open mindset experience and methodology to handle the complication in a well-ordered manner. Managers can absorb the impact of any change in the project and show flexibility while making any decision about the project. The pro-active approach to control changes results in a successful conclusion and predictable project conditions.

        Discussions related to the success of the project depends on a certified project manager action and role of participants in the honorable processes. The certification of project management develops the connection between the success of the project and completion of the project. Participants expressed their thoughts about certification, the success of the project, and supporting conditions for the effective project management. In order to understand the relation between an uncertified project manager and certified project manager, it is important to provide them with two executable and identical projects. The project method is unique to their nature as well as project managers, therefore, it is not possible to provide them with identical projects. The project managers, even if they are certified or not certified have the potential to conduct successful projects.

        The majority of participants agreed that methodology has a significant impact on the success of the project because it can be an independent work of project according to official project management standards. Common and large companies develop their own methodology to administrate higher performance of project management. The PMI standard demonstrated about the organization of a project and efficient processes that can increase the processes. Consider a condition in which problems occur with the customers and official standard providing arguments and advice to deal with it. The standards of project management require solution, effects, advantages, methodologies, and procedures applied to complete the project.

        In contradiction to the pure methodology, some participants proposed that the element of success is the level of experience of the manager regarding the methodology and project. According to these participants, the success of the project is associated with a combination of experience and methodologies. Managers will learn different methods to perform and apply procedures in training programs. The higher experience of manager increases the rate of success of the project. The integrated project management requires certification of experience up to project management standard. The noncertified project management gains their experience from training and work and they can successfully execute the project. Certification is just an official stamp of standards in project management that shows the manager can use standard methodologies to conductor project. The focus of the training program should be on the experiences instead of certification of the manager.

        However, the success of the project is not limited to these factors including experience and methodology of project management. Success also depends on custom, sponsorship, technical skills, and team membership. Consider the team members, the stakeholders, and sponsors do not accept applied methodology then in this situation, the project becomes disrupted. Without any agreement on the procedure the performance of project suffers, the trust level of members breaks, and chances of success of the project are reduced. As a team, it is important to keep in mind that the shared plan and target is to achieve good results. The team solitary can suffer due to the divergence of a team member from common procedures. The valuable procedure is required to be considered and observed constantly, and different methods of success should be applied.  All the participants in named 10 vulnerable procedures that are listed below,

define scope

manage stakeholder

manage the team

collect requirements

estimate duration

perform integrated change control

identify risks

control scope

estimate costs

identify the stakeholder

            Defining scope is the most vulnerable process that depends upon the nature of the industry. The success of the project and vulnerability of the project depends upon contractual in details. Consider the situation in which scope is clearly defined and agreed on the project in this situation implicit relation of the complication of the project changes.  The complete process requires the integrated change control and the control scope to gain an overview of changes and effect of the project. The pure risk identification can be performed with no influence on the success of the project.  Risk analysis depends upon some critical steps. The regular managing and tracking are required to mitigate the risk. The discounting risk has a negative impact on the success of the project. The possibility of manager-specific risk is to have outsourced and internal departmental management. According to some participants, the critical process and valuable process configuration depend upon termed knowledge area and communication procedures. Such kind of procedures has a significant impact on project management work and on the management of the team, identification of stakeholders, estimation of cost, management of stakeholders, estimation of duration, and delivery of the project. The team members along with the stakeholder must be informed about the delivery of the project and time required to complete the project. In the absence of adequate communication, project complication increases dramatically. Different types of project management and communication skills are required to deal with the public sector and economic sector to achieve the requirements and focus of scope.

        During the interview, it was mentioned that smart and small projects are not managed properly because they are not important for the company and large projects run alongside the progress of the company. Therefore, project managers pay full attention to the management of large projects instead of a small project that results in complication of the project. In general, major or large projects get more attention from management and governance, therefore, complication increases for the sponsors and stakeholders to get more involved in the success of the project.

        Regarding the methods and tools, brainstorming is a method that deals with different solutions. It gets more applications and provides a solution to complicated situations, views of stakeholders, and a solution for the actual complication in the situation. The participants mentioned that experienced project manager considers multiple options and methods to reduce the complication in the project.  The basic moderating technique of the work was to post notes. On the basis of these moderating techniques, proposed notes can provide information about the project. On the basis of the current situation, the project manager takes initiative to handle the complication and use specific methods to reduce problems and utilize the teamwork capability of all the members. The basic requirement of project management is to know about handling methods, managing methods, and reducing issues.  The right type of handling methods and tools is required to improve the unsatisfactory situation. The standards of actual project management provide methods to address the complication and to overcome the implication. These methods and procedures get full support from the project manager and work on the basis of standards. Some areas such as communication methods and Management deal with standard methods. In order to implement and realize the project, a detailed analysis is necessary. Overview of participants can be different according to the standard solution and difficult complicated situations.  But the handling experience is based upon standards and possible corrective methods are often provided in the standard. The explicit definition for the complication is getting more attention and it is a questionable condition. Complicated situations depend upon project management, situations, and the role of the project manager. The complication of the project has a significant impact on the success of the project and project manager. Therefore, general standards are required to be provided for guidance