Mastering successful parallel areas of complexity — a structured PM approach! Bicycle E-commerce in USA — a fast growing high tech company with an agile product portfolio entering the most complex market!

Over the last decade industries that normally used to satisfy their customers with their products through an existing dealer network were faced with the customer's increasing willingness and desire to purchase their products over the internet. New sales technology (e-commerce) had to meet and match (A) the complex, sometimes unpredictable customer expectations and behaviors (sales conversion) and (B) the product development of new products in a very dynamic, transparent and competitive market successfully because fast adapting creative companies grew often with such a speed that the structure required to manage the processes and projects could not grow at the same pace. In some instances, the market demand even forced such companies to act internationally immediately and globally later which added a new layer of complexity. After recognizing those parallel fields of complexity, the "Best in Class" companies initiated strategic projects and project management to manage this complexity pattern to finally increase the business success. The paper will use a real world example (E-Commerce High Tech Bicycle Company entering the US market) where this complexity exists (agile product development, fast growing business, new dynamic market, multi-cultural stakeholders) to illustrate the complexity layers and to describe which approaches and methods from other industries (e.g. Automotive) and business fields (Complex Project Management) were used to increase the enterprise expertise in different dimensions (organization, product, humans, program management). The paper will bring specific focus to the practical aspects, e.g. how to respond if the complexity creates dysfunctional moments. Finally, this paper will describe why and how theoretical models of complex project management, agility and decision making (Values, Eclectic, Psychology, Sociology and Power Based Factors.) were combined to identify needed actions, changes - and thus facilitated success.