Convergence from chaos to order in capital projects using chaos attractors – an explorative study

Abstract

Successful capital projects contribute to sustain society and accelerate socio-economic development due to its inherent multiplier effect. The linear project management paradigm does not seem to stem either historical or current capital project cost overruns and failures. Accelerative societal change in terms of trends, megatrends, paradigm shifts, Black Swan events, and disruptive technologies require capital projects to be executed in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment that is expected to result in more chaos and failures of capital projects. This research contributes to the non-linear ‘management by chaos’ paradigm and develops and test chaos theories and models for employment in capital projects. The objective of this research is to explore if chaos attractors could cause local convergence (first research question) and overall convergence (second research question) from chaos to order in capital projects and thereby contribute to reduce capital project cost overruns and failures.

Using the grand chaos theory and literature references to chaos attractor metaphors as a starting point, six lower-level chaos theories and variance models were built for fixed-point attractors, fixed-point repellers, limit-cycle attractors, torus attractors, butterfly attractors and strange attractors. One lower level-theory and variance model were built for a landscape that comprised of the six chaos attractors. A randomness-chaos-complexity-order continuum model was derived from literature to represent the context within which dynamic capital project behaviour unfolds.

Assuming a constructivist research paradigm, a two-round qualitative explorative research strategy was employed with the capital project as the unit of analysis. The Nominal Group Technique was employed in the first round of interviews with 12 experienced capital project managers to obtain grounded definitions, an understanding of the randomness-chaos-complexity-order continuum model and the concept of chaos attractors. Voice recordings from interviews were transcribed and content analysis was done using the Atlas.ti software. Five capital project archetypes were identified by respondents. This was followed by a second round of deep individual interviews using semi-structured questions with 14 experienced capital project managers. Content analysis was used to confirm the archetypes and test the transferability and convergence effect from chaos to order of the six chaos metaphors and one landscape of the six chaos metaphors to the capital project domain.

Evidence was found in terms of examples, characteristics, value statements and variance model scoring to suggest that local convergence in capital projects from chaos to order could occur as a result of the six individual chaos attractors. Similarly, that overall project convergence could occur as a result of a specific constellation of these six chaos attractors located across the capital project life cycle. Nine convergence-divergence archetypes were defined by respondents that described the dynamic behaviour of different types of capital projects in the randomness-chaos-complexity-order continuum. It was also found that achieving capital project convergence from chaos towards an ordered project state, using chaos attractors, do not imply project success. However, an ordered project state could aid the minimisation of capital project cost overruns.

“Chaos theory considers the convergence from chaos to order a natural phenomenon in capital projects that is brought about by the following six chaos attractors: fixed-point, repeller, limit-cycle, torus, butterfly and strange”. This exploratory research found evidence to support the existence of this grand theory and its associated mid-range and lower-level theories, but further research is required to validate the generalisation of these findings.