Modelling project complexity driven risk paths in new product development

Abstract

Project complexity has been extensively explored in the literature because of its major contribution towards the failure of major projects in terms of cost and time overruns. Researchers have identified important factors that contribute to the project complexity and validated their findings through case studies. Few studies have even focused on developing tools for evaluating the project complexity. However, existing research has not explored an important aspect of linking project complexity to different types of project and supply chain risks. We propose a framework for establishing risk paths across project complexity elements, project and supply chain risks, and resulting consequences. Project complexity elements are the knowns at the commencement stage of a project whereas project and supply chain risks are the uncertainties that might realize within the life cycle of the project. We demonstrate application of our proposed framework through a simple simulation example using Bayesian Belief Network. The method can be an important contribution to the literature and beneficial to the practitioners in terms of introducing a new perspective of investigating causal paths of interacting project complexity elements and risks.