A multi-criteria decision-making process for project risk management method selection

With projects facing tight constraints, uncertainty and change, they are more than ever exposed to risk. It has thus become increasingly important to effectively and efficiently manage project risks. Project risk management thus plays an important role in the quality and reliability of decisions made during a project. Our objective in this paper is to provide a project office manager or a project manager with one or more adequate project risk management (PRM) methods. To do this, we propose a structured approach based on a multi-criteria decision analysis model to select these methods. Firstly, we propose a list of alternative PRM methods and a list of selection criteria. Secondly, we capture, by interviewing decision-makers, data about their organisation and their preferences. Fuzzy numbers are used to express the relative importance of the criteria. Thirdly, the selection process is run by screening out inadequate methods and by ranking remaining alternatives. An application for one example is presented.