Risk Manageability Assessment to Improve Risk Response Plan: Case Study of Construction Projects in Iran

Abstract

The majority of qualitative risk assessment studies on construction projects assess manageability indicators (e.g., detectability, preventability, and controllability) independently of risk probability and impact, two main risk parameters. This study develops a model for assessing the risk manageability indicators by linking manageability to the chain of risks. Such risk manageability indicators may improve risk response plans. The chain of risks in the change-formation phase is used as the basis to determine why any change in a construction project is generally caused by a chain of risks. Focus is directed to the chain of risks in the change-formation phase that determine part of the probability of change. In this phase, final risks (causes) that correspond to uncertain events occur because of the presence of sources and drivers. This model defines a risk scenario as all paths between a source and a risk (cause). Drivers in the paths between sources and final risk are the signs of risk scenarios. This study evaluates the manageability indicators by using the observability of drivers of the chain of risks to define and assess two indices of detectability and trackability as two main components of the developed framework. These indices are used to improve the response plan to mitigate risk. Finally, to demonstrate the framework capabilities, a real construction project as an application example is analyzed. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge through evaluating the manageability of risk scenarios by defining the relationship between risk sources and risk signs (drivers). It also helps to expand existing knowledge by developing an approach for identifying and mitigating risk causes after the observation of risk signs. This evaluation may alert project management teams in advance of risk occurrence so that they can take necessary actions to reduce the probability of the risk. The results indicate that a project team should be aware that after observing a driver (risk sign) in a project, parts of previous paths in which no driver is observed may lose their importance, and that the importance of some paths in which observed drivers exist intensifies. Moreover, a project team’s observations may sometimes reduce the importance of remaining paths and direct the team to concentrate on taking appropriate measures to enable immediate prevention from a scenario’s endpoint (cause).