Managing the unknown: A new approach to managing high uncertainty and risk in projects

• Main Authors: LOCH, Christopher H., DE MEYER, Arnoud Cyriel Leo, PICH, Michael T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2006
• Subjects: Operations and Supply Chain Management
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5479
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The book offers a new way of looking at the problem of managing projects in novel and unknown environments. From Europe's leading business school, this book shows how to manage two fundamental approaches that, in combination, offer the possibility of coping with unforeseen influences that inevitably arise in novel projects: Trial-and-Error Learning allows for redefining the plan and the project as the project unfolds; Selectionism pursues multiple, independent trials in order to pick the best one at the end. The book offers expert guidelines to the specific project mindsets, infrastructures, and management methods required to use these project management approaches and achieve success in spite of unforeseen obstacles. This book equips readers with: Causal explanations of why unforeseeable factors in novel projects make traditional project planning and project risk management insufficient; Directly applicable management tools that help managers to guide novel and high-uncertainty projects; Real-world case studies of both successful and unsuccessful approaches to managing high uncertainty in novel projects.