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Criticality and propagation analysis of impacts between project deliverables

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Abstract

The implementation of a management by deliverables and deadlines is based on detailed planning and strict control of deliverables. It is a strategic decision that reports to the project manager and a key element to the success of complex projects. Based on the modeling of the project elements and their interactions using weighted directed graphs, this article presents some contributions to anticipate potential behavior of the project. Topological and propagation analyses are made to detect and prioritize critical elements and critical interdependencies while enlarging the sense of the polysemous word “critical.” We recommend a set of topological indicators suitable for project elements and interactions, which mainly allow us to discuss “How the impact of a project element affects other elements within the network? What is the collective influence of this element?”. These indicators permit to prioritize project elements and their interactions by detecting the most influential ones taking into account the network structure. For instance, they permit to evaluate the collective criticality of project deliverables and to re-evaluate the priority of the risks associated with these deliverables by coupling the traditional features of individual risks with the topological indicators of the deliverables. Furthermore, some algorithms are applied to extract and visualize the propagation path between two elements within the network. For example, this allows to provide a vision of potential impact propagation between two project deliverables, either they are associated with two milestones or are critical. An application to automotive industry illustrates the benefits of the approach, and some perspectives are drawn for further work.

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[adapted from (Marle and Vidal 2016)]

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, American University of Beirut, 1107 2020, Beirut, Lebanon

    Hadi Jaber

  2. Laboratoire Genie Industriel, CentraleSupélec, Université Paris-Saclay, Grande Voie des Vignes, 92290, Chatenay-Malabry, France

    Hadi Jaber, Franck Marle & Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal

  3. Strategy of Quality Management Department, 1 Avenue du Golf, 78280, Guyancourt, France

    Hadi Jaber & Lionel Didiez

Authors
  1. Hadi Jaber
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  2. Franck Marle
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  3. Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal
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  4. Lionel Didiez
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Correspondence to Hadi Jaber.

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Jaber, H., Marle, F., Vidal, LA. et al. Criticality and propagation analysis of impacts between project deliverables. Res Eng Design 29, 87–106 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00163-017-0254-7

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