Research Information System
16th Engineering Project Organisation Conference, Pula, Croatia, 25 - 27 June 2018, pp.805-816
It has been
widely acknowledged that risk assessment based on P-I ratings, has its
limitations in that it does not in general capture hidden factors behind the risk
ratings, mainly the “assumptions” and “background knowledge”. In this paper, it
is argued that utilization of assumption-based thinking may improve risk
assessment process by revealing assumptions behind risk evaluations. The
illustrative case study about a mega project in Turkey demonstrates that some
of the critical risk factors may be excluded from detailed analysis due to
invalid assumptions. A method for assumption-based risk assessment is proposed
as well as a sample format for an assumption log. Matching risks with
assumptions has a potential to improve the reliability of risk ratings and
updating risk management plans by checking validity of load-bearing and
vulnerable assumptions.
This paper presents some of the initial
ideas of an on-going research project about assumption-based risk assessment. The proposed method will be tested on real
projects to explore whether it has a potential to improve quality of risk-based
decisions.