Measuring The Project Complexity Based On WBS Complexity

In recent years, the number of complex product projects is increasing, and the size of project is expanding. Generally speaking, for any complex product project, we are able to establish professional design, development, procurement, manufacturing, assembly and marketing teams, we can design detailed project plan, control product management process, manufacturing process and product feedback process effectively, however, project management still faces efficiency issues during the whole management and implementation processes, reflecting on project delay, cost overruns, poor coordination of the handover and other aspects, the root cause is that project complexity affects the costs and benefits of the project. Complex product projects have typical features of project complexity, but the complexity of the project itself is often difficult to be measured, and it affects the project management performance. To measure the complexity of the project complex products, and ultimately reasonable reduce project complexity and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of project management, this paper has done the following work.Firstly, introduce the current situation of complex product projects, analyze the complexity factors that affect the project. Find the root causes of complex product project complexity generated by the project itself, which are structure and tasks relationships within the project. Secondly, propose a theoretic model of WBS complexity which contains 3 dimensions that are structure complexity, unit complexity and relevance complexity. Build a model to measure the complexity of complex product projects based on WBS complexity using entropy method and grid space. Thirdly, to verify the validity of the model and calculation methods, an empirical research was conducted on two complex product projects which are both managed by one manufacturing firm. Results indicate that using WBS complexity to timely adjust project task units during project management process can reduce project complexity and improve project management efficiency.This research improves the complex project systems theory, provides a guideline for the measurement of complex product project complexity, provide practical guidance for the use of WBS tools to reduce project complexity.