A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach with Interval Numbers for Evaluating Project Risk Responses

The aim of appropriate risk management in mega projects is to successfully deliver these projects for the lowest impacts at an acceptable level of risk. There is a need to develop and evaluate a set of risk response actions (RRAs) that reaches the lowest total project impacts under uncertainty while considering technical performance and schedule. Traditional techniques cannot effectively deal with the uncertainties of the risk response development. For this purpose, a new multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach with interval numbers is introduced to evaluate the appropriate RRAs for higher risks of mega projects. Two decision-making techniques, known as decision tree (DT) and TOPSIS are improved versus multiple conflicting criteria by considering interval computations, a new utility function and similarity degree. Then, a real application in oil and gas projects is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach under uncertainty, and the main advantages are reported.