

Leading Complex Projects
Leading Complex Projects
What You'll Learn
Week 1: Introduction - Explore Complexity
Watch a sneak peek
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Leading Complex Projects — A sneak peek of the course
1 Video Lesson
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Complex Project Leadership — Guiding both the work and the team
1 Meditation
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Develop Awareness of Your Intuition: In this meditation, you will explore the associations you have to intuition and start to cultivate your intuitive abilities through focused attention and awareness.
1 Assignment
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Visualize a Complex Project: When you see or hear the words “complex project”, visualize what comes to mind and describe what it means to you.
1 Discussion
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The Feeling of Complexity: Recall a time when things got complex on a project you were working on. How did it make you feel?
Week 2: Enable Outcomes
5 Video Lessons
- Articulate the Why — Defining the purpose of the project
- Mentor Moment — The importance of naming the project
- The Power of Simplicity — Guiding principles and their benefits
- Leading Through Generosity — Strategies for motivating others
- The Project of Self — Becoming a more self-aware project leader
1 Assignment
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Craft Your Project Purpose Statement: In this assignment, we’ll guide you through the steps to understand and define your project’s underlying need, intended audience, and desired impact, and synthesize them into a simple and concise statement of purpose.
5 Discussions
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The Importance of Purpose: Think back to a personal or professional project where you assumed you knew the purpose but later learned that your assumption may have been off the mark. What impact did this have on you and the outcomes of the work?
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The Name Game: What surprises you about Shuya’s opinion on naming projects, and what feels most helpful about the tips she’s shared?
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Guiding Principles: If you already use some form of guiding principles in your work, what impact did they have on a past or present project? If you don't currently use them, what opportunities do you have for crafting guiding principles, either individually or collectively?
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Emotional Triggers: What was the last strong emotion that surfaced for you at work? Describe the circumstances and the behaviors you adopted in response. How might you react to this same situation or emotion in the future?
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A Personal Connection: When was a time someone identified a personal passion or interest in you and created an opportunity for you to connect that with your work? What impact did it have on you and the outcomes of the work?
Week 3: Design Alignment
4 Video Lessons
- A Systems View — Mapping and visualizing the project network
- Mentor Moment — Understanding different mental models
- Collective Communication Techniques — Building a shared understanding
- From Obstacle to Advantage — Tips for utilizing disagreement
1 Assignment
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Map the Project System: In this assignment, you will create a systems map of your project that visualizes each stakeholder and the exchanges of information between them. You will use this map to spot opportunities to improve or repair alignment.
4 Discussions
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Aligning Stakeholders: Think about a project you worked on that involved a lot of stakeholders with different perspectives. How did you try to create alignment and bring people along?
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Mental Models That Differ from Our Own When we encounter a mental model that differs from ours, often our natural reaction is to assume the other person is wrong or misinformed. How do you commonly respond to a different mental model, and how would you like to respond differently going forward?
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Collective Knowing: We’ve shared a few ways to create collective knowing through group communication. Choose one technique you’ve used before. How did it go?
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Separate the Person from the Behavior: We have a tendency to label behaviors, but when we label someone as a naysayer, we communicate and assume that they are always that way. We see it as a situation of them versus us. Reflect on a time when you were the dissenting voice or you wanted to be, but couldn’t share your thoughts. How did that feel? How were others helpful to you or harmful in that moment?
Week 4: Leverage Intuition
3 Video Lessons
- Beyond Reason — The value of intuition in complex situations
- Sensing Opportunities — Strategies for surfacing intuition
- Got a Hunch, Now What? — Methods for testing your intuition
1 Meditation
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Investigate Your Intuition: In this meditation, you will explore your reactions and responses around an intuition to determine if what you are experiencing is a genuine intuition or a bias, assumption, or strong emotion.
1 Assignment
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Analyze Your Intuition: Our intuitions can be a valuable source of information when we need to make decisions, solve problems, or foresee conditions. In this assignment, you will practice surfacing and analyzing your intuitions to identify patterns and insights.
3 Discussions
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Intuition In Your Own Words: What is intuition to you? Have you ever had an intuition that turned out to be right? Describe what happened and what you learned from the experience.
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Welcome Intuition: Look across the seven strategies for surfacing intuition. Have you tried one of them before? What was the challenge you were facing and the result of using this strategy?
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When Intuition Misleads: Think about a time when you acted on an intuition without thinking—and your intuition led you astray. Was there an underlying assumption, emotion, or bias that clouded your judgment? What happened and what did you learn from the experience?
Week 5: Conclusion - Build Resilience
2 Video Lessons
- Beyond the Project — How genuine relationships elevate outcomes
- The Most Complex Project of All — Applying lessons from projects to everyday life
1 Assignment
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Make a Plan: Reflect on what you have learned about yourself as a project leader along this journey, and make a plan for how you will continue to apply the mindsets and tools for leading complex projects.
2 Discussions
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Relationships and Resilience: Nothing builds our resilience more than relationships. How do you personally foster meaningful relationships with people in your projects?
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Life Lessons: Recall a time when you faced uncertainty in your own life outside of work. How did you navigate the situation and what was the outcome?
Meet Your Instructors

Katie Soven
Senior Portfolio Director at IDEO
Trained as an architect, Katie understands that a systems approach to problem solving can be applied to complex problems and situations. Her work at IDEO includes innovating with clients across the retail, hospitality, automotive, civic, and financial service spaces. She is passionate about the future of work and supporting organizations on their transformation journey by creating jobs that are fulfilling, rewarding, and sustainable.
Katie received a master’s degree in Architecture from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the University of Florida.

Dwayne Edwards
Executive Portfolio Director at IDEO
As a former intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps, Dwayne empowers organizations to navigate complexity and engage with people in real and lasting ways that support business and society. This can look like new products, services, or capabilities designed for human needs. Before joining IDEO, he worked as a product manager at Volvo Cars of North America where he helped develop Volvo’s subscription model and built stronger relationships between retailers and customers.
Dwayne received his MBA from the Yale School of Management, a master’s degree in Criminal Law and Procedure from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Law from Binghamton University.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cohort courses run on a set calendar, with fixed start and end dates. Course learning is self-paced within those dates and requires approximately 4-5 hours per week over 5 weeks. Courses consist of videos, activities, assignments, access to course teaching teams, and feedback from a global community of learners.
Cohort courses also provide optional 1-hour video Community Conversations, held weekly by the teaching team. They occur during set times, which are released during the first week of the course, and set to accommodate as many time zones as possible.
All of our courses are fully online and self-paced, so you can take them from any time zone, anywhere in the world.
During 5-week cohort courses, your course teaching team will host scheduled virtual community conversations which are optional. Timing will be announced during the first week of the course and is set to accommodate as many time zones as possible. Don’t worry if you aren’t able to make it, as these are purely optional.
Absolutely! We have had many teams go through our courses together with great success. For those taking our courses as a team, we provide a couple of additional benefits:
1. A Team Learning Guide, developed to provide your team with resources to facilitate offline discussion to complement the in-course experience.
2. A Manage Learners function, which provides visibility into your team's progress within the course.
3. The ability to create a private Learning Circle, which is a closed space for discussion on the learning platform specifically for your team.
For more information, visit our Team Learning page.
You can purchase your course by clicking Enroll on this page. This will take you to our checkout process where we accept various credit cards, PayPal, or Shop Pay.
We also offer installment plans which you can select at checkout if you use the Shop Pay method of payment. Available for U.S. learners at the moment.
Collaborate with a Global Community
Work with Expert Coaches
Our teaching team has extensive applied industry knowledge. They'll help deepen your understanding and application of the course content by facilitating written discussions, live video moments, and assignment feedback.
Expand Your Network
Join virtual live discussion groups for deeper conversation, reflection, and connection led by teaching team members and available multiple times a week across time zones.
Receive Feedback
Gain tips, techniques, and a downloadable feedback guide; and share and receive feedback on assignments from peers.



Loved by Learners Across the Globe
Leading Complex Projects
Cohort Course“I was blown away from the diversity of instructional methods used. I absolutely loved the workbook and accompanying content. The activities and assignments were so well designed for pushing me to learn new things in a way that felt approachable despite requiring deep thought and perspective shifts.”
Leading Complex Projects
Cohort Course“I really enjoyed this course. A lot of times you take trainings that you can't really bring back to your company and implement. This is the first course within my 13.5 year career that was 100% relatable to my company.”
Leading Complex Projects
Cohort Course“I found this course extremely helpful in getting foundational ideas about leadership into my mind, behavior, and vernacular. The insight I gained in the first IDEO U course I took are with me today 3 years later. Ensuring you have the time and bandwidth to focus on learning is critical to the success of these courses.”
Leading Complex Projects
Cohort Course“The lessons are fresh and robust with tangible ways to apply the lessons to your everyday. The content doesn't feel like the same stuffy lessons you find elsewhere.”
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Enroll As a Team
The practice and application of design thinking, innovation, and creativity is highly collaborative and team based—which is why we believe that learning is better together. Take a course as a team and develop new skills and mindsets, have deeper discussion during course kickoff and debrief sessions, and build a shared understanding.