Managing Project Interdependencies: Exploring New Approaches . A paper I co-authored with Doctor Catherine Killen, Brooke Krumbeck, and Cai Kjaer. The paper was presented to the Asia Pacific Expert Forum in November 2009 (APES 2009).
The paper outlines two related studies that aim to improve the understanding and management of interdependencies within project portfolios. The paper first defines project portfolio management and highlights its growing importance for optimising organisational outcomes, especially in dynamic environments. Project portfolio complexity and interdependencies between projects in a portfolio are then overviewed, highlighting the challenges that these interdependencies create for effective project portfolio management, and introducing some of the methods used for understanding and managing these interdependencies, including the dependency matrix and the related design structure matrix. Network analysis and mapping tools are then introduced and suggested as a novel method for improving understanding and managing project interdependencies. Finally, an example of the use of this type of method is presented and the research projects are overviewed.