Delay-oriented risk network model for project risk response decisions

Risk interactions change the occurrence probability of risks and the impact due to the risks. Accurate risk interaction modeling becomes the key point in making project risk response decisions to ensure successful project completion. However, previous researches mostly focus on the probability of triggering a risk by another, ignoring the time delay existing in risk interaction, which can lead to inaccurate risk criticality assessment and reduce the efficacy of risk response decisions. Departing from the risk interaction network, whose nodes and edges are the risks and risk interactions respectively, this paper constructs a risk delay network (RDN) by taking time delay as an edge attribute. And accordingly, put forward an integrated approach to support decision making on risk responses, comprising an RDN simulation model for evaluating risk criticality and an RDN structural analysis to propose effective solutions on the critical risks. The simulation model suggests that risk criticality varies depending on whether time delays are considered or not. The RDN structural analysis applies a novel network index to compute the contributions of the nodes and edges to the risk criticality from the bird’s eye view on the RDN. An example is applied to validate the integrated approach.