Cambridge Judge Business School

Executive Education

STEERING COMPLEX
PROJECTS
 Steering Complex Projects

OVERVIEW

“ Too often we see projects in

isolation. We view projects without
context and fail to adequately bring
“ As a participant, you will also learn how to
build the personnel and incentive
structure necessary to identify the right
project for your strategy and implement it.
our experience to the process.

Kishore Sengupta
Reader in Operations Management
Cambridge Judge Business School
Executive Education

Today’s companies understand that

successful project management is crucial for
business growth and organisational change.
And while many are actively looking for
ways to expand their project management
capabilities in order to take on more
complex and novel projects, few have been
able to successfully connect the dots
between their strategic goals and their
project goals.

This programme presents concepts essential

for developing these broader project
capabilities, enabling leaders to fill in the
context gaps within their projects and to
envision what shape the implementation
might take within their organisations.

While other programmes focus on the

technical aspects of project management,
Steering Complex Projects explores three
different project types: execution, novel and
change. Each type of project must be
managed differently, taking into account the
politics and negotiation of strategy within
projects.

02
 Steering Complex Projects

WHO IS THIS PROGRAMME FOR?

This programme is focused on the “why” and “how” of managing strategic projects, and
provides essential best practices regarding their successful completion as well as
delivering value for stakeholders.

This programme is ideal for:

• C-suite and senior-level executives seeking an overview of project management, as well

as insights on choosing the most appropriate project approach based on their strategic
objective.

• Highly experienced PMP-certified project managers looking to go deeper than

traditional PMP courses and develop their leadership skills in project management.

• Consultants who need the skill to articulate the case for projects and influence multiple
stakeholders.

The programme’s lessons are applicable across most major industries, including banking
and finance, consulting, government, infrastructure, professional services, real estate,
technology and telecom.

03
 Steering Complex Projects

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

The programme includes video lectures, discussions, live online teaching

sessions and assignments. We expect participants to dedicate 4 – 6 hours
per week over the eight weeks of the programme.

Steering Complex Projects

Projects as Strategic Change

Translate high level strategic goals into project goals.

Aligning Projects with People

Identify the key characteristics of different types of projects, and
articulate the appropriate management and personnel systems
for each.

Managing Risk and Uncertainty

Anticipate project uncertainties and take mitigating or
responsive actions.

Governance and Accountability

Build a framework for managing governance structures
with accountability measures.

Relationships and Influence

Develop effective practices in relationship management
and exercising influence.

Providing an Integrated Framework

Apply established methods of knowledge exchange and
learning tools in a way that is appropriate to the challenges
of a project.

04
 Steering Complex Projects

SYLLABUS

Module 1: Projects as Strategic Change

• Understand the strategic goals of the organisation and articulate what the project outcomes will
contribute to the strategy
• Understand the political process of creating project goals, including negotiating and seeking win-win
coalitions
• Translate high level strategic goals into project goals
• Identify the key characteristics of different types of project and articulate appropriate management
and personnel systems for each

Module 2: Execution Projects

• Identify the key characteristics of execution projects
• Understand the logic and assumptions behind Gantt charts to identify their limitations
• Understand the managerial relevance of the critical path and limitations
• Identify uncertainties and take mitigating or responsive actions

Module 3: Novel Projects

• Identify the key characteristics of novel projects and the technical steps of managing them
• Articulate the steps to follow when encountering unforeseeable uncertainty
• Understand pivoting/iterating and parallelism, and how to incorporate them into project planning
and monitoring

Module 4: Change Projects

• Identify the four methods for managing a change project
• Generate guidelines for managing the social dimensions of change
• Author a template for stakeholder management
• Reflect upon and apply the principles of change project management to a project in your
professional work

Module 5: Managing People and Teams

• Identify and apply ingredients of goal clarity and three criteria for them
• Articulate competency-driven values for a project
• Analyse how to deal with rule-breakers and high-performers and establish related guidelines
• Answer the key questions for fostering effective interpersonal dynamics

05
 Steering Complex Projects

Module 6: Governance
• Understand the role that governance plays in maintaining strategic alignment in projects
• Identify the five elements of well-designed governance structures
• Build a framework for managing the governance structure with accountability measures
• Learn how supervision and goals reveal the political nature of the role of the project within the
organisation

Module 7: Partners
• Understand what contracts can and cannot do, and identify the four different types of contracts for
an appropriate fit
• Understand the role that co-location can play in project management
• Understand how renegotiation must be built into the contract from the beginning
• Develop effective practices in relationship management and exercising influence

Module 8: Learning and Integration

• Identify the tools for each project type, and how to deploy them
• Define how organisational learning is different from individual learning
• Make informed choices from the portfolio of tools to ensure projects encourage learning within
the organisation
• Apply established methods of knowledge exchange and learning tools in a way that is appropriate
to the challenges of a project

06
 Steering Complex Projects

PROGRAMME FACULTY

Christoph H. Loch
Dean of Cambridge Judge Business School
Professor of Technology and Operations Management
Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. (Darmstadt Institute of Technology), MBA (University of Tennessee,
Knoxville), PhD (Stanford Graduate School of Business)

Before coming to CJBS in 2011, Professor Loch was Chaired Professor of Technology
and Operations Management at INSEAD, where he also served as Dean of the PhD
programme and as the director of the INSEAD Israel Research Center. He served as
department editor and Associate Editor of Management Science, Manufacturing &
Service Operations Management and Production and Operations Management,
and as chair of the Behavioral Operations section of INFORMS. His research focuses
on the management of innovation processes, and project management more
broadly; including innovation strategy; projects under high uncertainty; the
emotional aspect to the motivation of professional project workers, and project
supervision and governance. In 2012, Professor Loch was identified in a
benchmarking study as one of the top 10 innovation researchers worldwide. He
serves on the supervisory board of an educational software start-up company and
is a member of the Cambridge United Football Club board of directors.

Kishore Sengupta
Reader in Operations Management

MBA, PhD (Case Western University)

Dr. Sengupta has served as advisor on several projects with the U.S. Government
Department of Defense and NASA, and has consulted with organisations in Silicon
Valley and Hong Kong. He has also worked at the AT&T Network Software Center
(now Lucent Technologies) and Ernst & Young. His published research appears in
journals in information technology and management, such as Management
Science, MIS Quarterly, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, IEEE
Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, and IEEE Transactions on
Engineering Management. He is currently working on a book on online electronic
environments. Prior to joining the School, Dr Kishore Sengupta was an Associate
Professor of Information Systems at INSEAD. Before this he was on the faculty at
the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, USA. In 1996-1997 he was a
Visiting Scholar at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong
Kong.

07
 Steering Complex Projects

CASE STUDIES

Each week starts with a vignette or case reading in which participants examine not only the technical
aspects of project management, but also the managerial and strategic implications. The vignettes compel
participants to confront the problems of:

Project Strategy
See how a struggling natural resources company facing an uncertain future weighs the
merits and risks of multiple projects to determine which one(s) will help move their
organisation forward in this strategy-driven

Project Planning
An engineering company that builds drones is tasked with delivering a product proposal
to a customer within an abbreviated timeframe. Follow their consideration of the benefits,
duration, risks and costs of different activities in an effort to maintain their project
schedule.

Novel Projects
Follow the journey of a turnaround CEO at software startup tasked with a project with
many unknowns that require her to get to the source(s) of the organisation’s problems in
order to determine the appropriate goals for the project.

Team Composition
Delve into the makeup of two teams racing to reach the South Pole first in 1911 and see
how their composition impacted their success, from their goals, values and
problem-solving processes to team roles, interpersonal dynamics and leadership.

Governance
Discover how stakeholder buy-in and leadership issues led to the failure of a knowledge
management project undertaken by an enterprise software management company.

Project Contracts
Explore fundamental problems with contracts and how an integrated approach can
enhance success through the lens of three high-profile project contracts—the Eurotunnel,
the Panama Canal expansion, and Heathrow Terminal 5.

Project Learning
Evaluate the efficacy and necessity of a variety tools used by an IT consulting firm to
ensure that learnings from individual projects could be utilised by their entire project
organisation.

08
 Steering Complex Projects

ASSIGNMENTS

Assignments are structured around the project management workbook, in which participants reflect on
each week’s concepts and then plot next steps to apply what they’ve learned. Responding in the form of
a few short paragraphs, participants place their key findings in the context of their own organisation.

Participants also have opportunities to reinforce key concepts by participating in brainstorm activities,
discussions, and interactive quiz questions. These non-graded activities are interspersed between the
videos.

Strategy & Change Execution Projects

Describe a strategic change
project your company should be
tackling now but isn't, and
determine what type of project it
would be and its outcome.
Explore opportunities for three
areas of execution project
management in your organisation:
critical path; establishing buffers
or risk management.

Novel Projects Managing Change Projects

Provide a rationale for why you’d
ask a question with an unknown
answer, explain how you would
answer it, and identify the
mini-project you'd need to set up
to arrive at an answer.
Assembling and
Managing Teams
Analyse breakdowns in the key
ingredients for high-performance
teams—and evaluate your own
organisation.
Structuring Contracts
Develop a potential
recommendation for how
structuring contracts could be
approached differently or better
within your organisation,
specifying the stakeholders you'd
need to work with to execute it.
Dissect a change project, identify
takeaways, and use them to develop
a playbook for future projects.
Governance Structure
Identify a systematic weakness in
project governance at your
organisation and describe how it
could be remedied.
Learning Tools
Describe the function, benefits and
limitations of a learning tool.
Expound on how learning could be
strengthened in your organisation
and the tools that could be
incorporated to support it.

09
 Steering Complex Projects

THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

The Steering Complex Projects programme is spread over eight weeks and consists of
Video Lectures, Live Webinars, Assignments, Q&A Sessions and Discussions.

Orientation
The Steering Complex Projects programme is spread over eight weeks and
consists of Video Lectures, Live Webinars, Assignments, Q&A Sessions and
Discussions.

Goal Setting
In other weeks, you have learning goals set for the week, including watching the
video lectures and completing the assignments. All assignments have weekly
deadlines.

Video Lectures
The recorded video lectures are conducted by programme faculty.

Live Webinars
During the programme, there are two live webinars conducted by Cambridge
Judge faculty. Live webinars are usually conducted between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. UTC
on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

Q&A Sessions
In addition to the live webinars, Course Leaders also conduct Q&A sessions every
week or every alternate week to help participants clarify any questions they may have
about the content.

Follow-Up
A Programme Support Team will follow-up through emails and via phone calls with
participants who are unable to submit their assignments on time.

Continuous Programme Access

You will continue to have access to the programme videos and learning material for up to
12 months from the programme start date.

10
 Steering Complex Projects

CERTIFICATE

Upon successful completion of the programme, participants will be awarded a digital

Certificate of Completion by Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education.

Date

Your Name

completed

STEERING COMPLEX PROJECTS

Cambridge Judge Business School

Executive Education
University of Cambridge

Allison Wheeler Heau Jane Davies

Director of Open Programmes Director
Cambridge Judge Business School Cambridge Judge Business School
Executive Education Executive Education
University of Cambridge University of Cambridge

11
 Steering Complex Projects

ABOUT CAMBRIDGE JUDGE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Founded in 1990, Cambridge Judge Business School is part of the Faculty of Business and
Management at the University of Cambridge. In 1991 sponsorship from Sir Paul and Lady Judge
provided the funds that enabled construction of a building for the newly established school.
One of Britain’s most brilliant and innovative architects, John Outram, was chosen to design the
building, which has been widely acclaimed for its boldly imaginative and colourful design.

The reputation of Cambridge Judge Business School has grown rapidly and today it is
internationally celebrated as a provider of stimulating management education, with a particular
emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation management. With a world-class faculty of over
50 members and a philosophy of collaboration, the School is a place where people from many
disciplines meet and share ideas – policy makers, entrepreneurs, leaders of industry, regulators,
not-for-profit organisations and academics. One of the main strengths of Cambridge Judge
Business School is its position at the heart of a vibrant entrepreneurial community – the so-called
Silicon Fen, or Cambridge Cluster. Cambridge, and the area surrounding it. is home to a multitude
of high-tech businesses and the School benefits from this proximity by drawing on experienced
business founders who can act as role models to aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Alumni: Cambridge Judge Business School’s global community has over 6200 members in more
than 100 countries worldwide; a truly international and dynamic network.

Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education

Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education offers a wide range of open enrolment
and customised programmes. These programmes are designed for organizations, business
professionals, managers, leaders, and executives from many different functions who strive for
professional and personal growth. Programmes are developed to help executives and
organisations from both the private and the public sectors achieve operational excellence and
results.

12
Cambridge ideas
have changed the
world. Over 100
Nobel Prizes have
been awarded
to Cambridge
alumni.
 Steering Complex Projects

PROGRAMME FEE AND DURATION

Upon successful completion of the programme, participants will be awarded a digital

Certificate of Completion by Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education.

USD 2,000
8 Weeks, Online

Singapore residents who wish to enrol in this programme will be charged GST.

PREREQUISITES

in English. All videos are recorded in English. All assignments are written in
?
English and are required to be responded to in English.

The programme requires you to have a device and 1 Mbps (or faster) Internet
connection. The device on which you access the programme should support
one of the following browsers: Chrome 71, Firefox 64, IE 11, Edge 42, Safari 11.

ABOUT EMERITUS

Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education is collaborating with online education provider
EMERITUS to offer a portfolio of high-impact online programmes. These programmes leverage Cambridge
Judge Business School’s thought leadership in technical practice developed over years of research,
teaching and practice.

By collaborating with EMERITUS, we are able to broaden access beyond our on-campus offerings in a
collaborative and engaging format that stays true to the quality of Cambridge Judge Business School
Executive Education.

14
Schedule a call with a
Programme Advisor to
learn how this programme
can help you

SCHEDULE A CALL

Apply for the programme here

APPLY NOW

This programme is being delivered in

collaboration with EMERITUS.

Prospective participants with

questions on the programme are
encouraged to contact EMERITUS,
for further information.

Email: info@emeritus.org
Call: +44 122 858 5700

Cambridge Judge Business School

Executive Education
University of Cambridge
Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1AG
United Kingdom

The organisers reserve the right to change

any details of the Programme without notice.
© JBS Executive Education Limited has
copyright of all original material contained in
this brochure.