System thinking approaches to address complex issues in project management

Project management is closely related to systems approaches, especially systems engineering systems approach when in the 90s in the defense and armed forces, operations research, systems engineering and project management were used to manage large research and development projects. Project management and systems thinking overlap. Interestingly, it seems that simple systems thinking tools are not widely used in project management, even though these tools can provide unparalleled benefits in framing and solving problems that arise from multiple perspectives and relationships between variables. The main goal of this article is to introduce the concepts and selected tools of systems thinking in project management and describe their application in managing complex projects. Also, the benefits of using "hard" and "soft" systems thinking tools in certain phases of the project life will be discussed.