SYSTEM DYNAMICS IN PROJECT-MANAGEMENT - ASSESSING THE IMPACTS OF CLIENT BEHAVIOR ON PROJECT PERFORMANCE

The influence of client behaviour on a project is complex, including s chedule restrictions on milestones, high demand on progress reports, d elays in approving documents, and changes to workscope throughout the life-cycle. Quantifying these effects is important to project managers , in particular for effective communication with the client. Tradition al planning and control tools have proved ineffective at providing qui ck and reliable information. Their tendency to incorporate more detail has increased their complexity, inhibiting practical strategic analys es. System Dynamics provides an alternative view in which these major influences are considered and quantified explicitly. This approach dis penses with much of the detail required by the traditional tools, but enables modelling of the systemic effects which traditional tools cann ot model. The authors have developed a conceptual framework in which S ystem Dynamics models are combined with traditional tools providing co mplementary support, and validated it in a large software project. Thi s paper describes the use of this framework to assess and quantify the impacts of client behaviour. A practical example is discussed.