identified the main factors that are considered in the
literature: Size, Interdependence and Interrelations,
Goals and Objectives, Stakeholders, Management
Practices, Division Labor, Technology, Conccurent
engineering, Globalization and context dependence,
Diversity, ambiguity, Flux.
Also, with a focus on IT projects, Morcov et al.
(2020) identified the below characteristics of
complexity : Multiplicity, ambiguity, uncertainty,
Details (Structural), Dynamics, Disorder, Instability,
Emergence, Non-Linearity, recursiveness,
irregularity, randomness, Dynamic complexity,
uncertainty of objectives and methods, varied
stakeholder and competing views, changing
objectives, adaptive evolving, explanation states of
stability-instability, Size, Variety, interdependence,
context, innovation, difficult to understand, Difficult
to foresee and difficult to control.
Lagerström et al. (2013) applied Design
Structure Matrices. They classify applications based
on their dependencies into core, control, shared and
periphery applications and calculate the propagation
costs.
In Schneider et al. (2014), the authors identified
eight aspects frequently examined in complexity
science literature and proposed a conceptual
framework that aims to unify views on complexity
through four dimensions : Objective vs Subjective /
Structural vs Dynamics/ Quantitative vs Qualitative/
Ordered vs Disordered.
Kahane’s approach to complexity used a process
called the U-process. Basically, the project managers
try to sense the current reality of the project, then
analyse it and propose action items, and finally they
implement those actions (Kahane, 2004).
Cynefin Decision-Making Framework originated
from Snowden‟s work in knowledge management. It
is a sense-making framework that sorts systems into
five domains that require different actions based on
cause and effect relationships: simple, complicated,
complex, chaotic and disorder (Kurtz et al., 2003).
In relation with Enterprise Architecture, Iacob et
al. (2018) worked on the conceptualization of EA
complexity measurement, including the variables
and the metrics to measure them. Through an
analysis of the state-of-the-art, they proposed a
measurement model that integrated existing
complexity metrics and introduced new metrics.
Janssen et al. (2006) considered enterprises as
complex adaptive systems and attributed to them
properties like emergence and self-organization. In
addition, they provided concrete architectural
guidelines.
Mocker (2009) provided one of the first
empirical evaluations of complexity measures
including interdependencies of applications,
diversity of technologies, deviation from standard
technologies and redundancy.
Kandjani et al. (2013) presented a co-evolution
path model, which is based on the idea of Ashby’s
law of requisite variety. The model shows that each
time the complexity of an enterprise’s environment
changes, the enterprise itself has to adjust its
complexity.
According to the IEEE Standard 1471-2000 in
IEEE Architecture Working Group (2000) and
Schütz et al. (2013), we can consider EA as a
system, consisting of its components and its
relations to each other. Zio (2016) stated that
systems are increasingly exposed to hazards of
disruptive events. Thus, risk assessment is applied to
act proactively to those events and prevent eventual
losses.
The International Risk Governance Council
(2012) defined risk as an uncertain (generally
adverse) consequence of an event or activity with
respect to something that human beings value. As
for the risk description, the focus is on the accident
scenarios, their possible consequences and
likelihoods, and the uncertainties therein (Bjerga et
al., 2016). The post-accident recovery process, is not
considered. As the accuracy of scenarios and of
estimations are evaluated against the available
knowledge which is limited, risk needs to take into
account the uncertainties associated to the risk
assessment (Kaplan, 1981). Aven et al. (2010)
integrated knowledge as an explicit component in
the definition of risk. The challenge is to have under
analysis all the knowledge from experts observations
and model prediction about rare but potentially
disastrous accident events (Zio, 2018). The
relatively recent discussions on the concept of risk,
have clearly stated the outcomes of risk assessment
are conditioned on the knowledge available on the
system and/or process under analysis (Aven, 2016).
This means that there is inevitable existence of a
residual risk related to the unknowns in the system,
and/or process characteristics and behaviors.
For a specific project, the identification and the
tracking requirement are not sufficient as they are
based on unconstrained plans. Thus, Perera et al.
(2005) proposed to integrate 7 pillars of risk
management (Schedule, people, technical,
configuration management, Safety, Environment,
and cost/Budget) with the three major areas of
emphasis of project management which are project