Search based risk mitigation planning in project portfolio management

Abstract

Software projects are always facing various risks. These risks should be identified, analyzed, prioritized, mitigated, monitored and controlled. After risks are identified and analyzed, resources must then be devoted to mitigation. However, risk prioritization and mitigation planning are complicated problems. Especially in project portfolio management (PPM), resource contention among projects leads to difficulty in choosing and executing mitigation actions. This paper introduces a search based risk mitigation planning method that is useful in PPM. It integrates the analysis of risks, consideration of available resources, and evaluation of possible effects when taking risk mitigation actions. The method uses a genetic algorithm to search for the risk mitigation plan of optimal value. A case study shows how this method can identify effective risk mitigation plans, thus providing useful decision support for managers.