Towards a New Paradigm for Management of Complex Engineering Projects: A System-of-Systems Framework

The objective of this paper is to propose a system-of-system framework for bottom-up assessment of complex engineering projects. The traditional project management paradigm is mainly based on centralized planning and control. The centralized planning and control are rooted in a reductionism perspective in which engineering projects are identified as monolithic systems while, in reality, complex engineering projects are systems-of-systems. Systems-of-systems have different traits compared with monolithic systems. Thus, lack of consideration of engineering projects as systems-of-systems has led to methodological challenges in creation of integrated tools and techniques for better analysis and management of complex projects. In this paper, a system-of-systems (SoS) framework is proposed as an integrated methodological structure towards the creation of tools and techniques for integrated management of complex engineering projects. Different dimensions of the proposed SoS framework are introduced and evaluated with respect to the required capabilities for addressing the existing methodological challenges in traditional project management. The analysis demonstrated in this paper reveals that the proposed framework is capable of addressing the methodological challenges pertaining to traditional project management paradigm, and can be tested by researchers from different engineering fields to advance the body of knowledge in management of complex engineering projects.