IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT OF DESIGN PROJECT RISKS USING THE CONCEPT OF VULNERABILITY : A SYSTEMS APPROACH
Year: 2011
Editor: Culley, S.J.; Hicks, B.J.; McAloone, T.C.; Howard, T.J. & Cantemessa, M.
Author: Vidal, Ludovic-Alexandre; Marle, Franck; Bocquet, Jean-Claude
Series: ICED
Section: Design Organisation and Management
Page(s): 93-103
Abstract
Since design projects evolve within complex environments, they must face more and more numerous, varied and interrelated risks. Therefore, traditional paradigms of project risk management must be completed by the use of new systems thinking-oriented approaches. This paper thus proposes a description of the project vulnerability management process and compares it with the traditional project risk management process in order to highlight the potential benefits of such a new systems-oriented approach. It also proposes a methodology to analyze project vulnerabilities by decomposing them into three levels: values, processes and project elements. A stressor/receptor analogy-based model is the basis to identify and evaluate project vulnerabilities. A simple index then aggregates the concepts of resistance, resilience and contribution to value creation. This enables to rank project vulnerabilities in order to assist decision-making. Finally, a case study is presented: it explains the benefits of the vulnerability approach in the case of a project in the context of the pharmaceutical industry, the aim of which was to design a decision support system and its corresponding work organization.
Keywords: VULNERABILITY; SYSTEMS THINKING; RISK MANAGEMENT; PROJECT MANAGEMENT; COMPLEXITY