A new approach to program risk management based on design structural matrix

Risk has become a phenomenon that plays a decisive role in the decision nodes in the flow of life encountered in the life cycle. Human was wanted to manage this situation and the flows started to be planned. When it is seen where or what can be done or done, a more predictable life pattern is entered. However, those who have changed in life have continued to change the circumstances in the world. It has been seen that every subject in the social domain cannot be accounted for. When we think about projects and programs to produce a product or service now, there is a group that interacts with each other without knowing each other. When this group of constraints is closed into the bell glass, and limited by budget, time, and content, the structure becomes more chaotic. In this system where projects and programs are managed, it is necessary to emphasize risk management, which is caused by uncertainty. The social life transformed into a fast consumer society has accelerated environmental interaction, and a product life cycle has emerged that is faster than new services and products. People of this society change the products rapidly and get bored of the services quickly that, people in the product development cycle feels the pressure for early launch in a limited budget. Industry evolved itself according to demand of the consumers. Product life cycle has affected the product development process, and at an affordable cost, it has been attempted to manage the risk more aggressively and to make the risk sources visible to meet the product at the target time. In this context, risk reserves have been added and risk margins have been tried to be managed by defining the risks and probabilities. Therefore, new approaches have been developed. The need for new perspectives has arisen for the product development process, which seems to be a large organism in interaction with the reactive view, where point solution is not enough. Projects in which different disciplined teams are involved in product development are aimed at changing managers' and employees' point of view to situations and events, with the aim of negotiating and reconciling ideas during the feasibility stage. In order to create a new perspective, the history of the project management techniques applied in the programs was examined first. In this stage, chronologically, examples from the Gantt scheme used at the beginning of the 20th century to the critical chain project management were searched. Product development projects were selected as focused application area and the effects of uncertainty in these projects were examined in the literature. As a consequence of uncertainty, risks and opportunities emerged at the later stages of the project and turned into risk management in the context of literature review. When the risk management steps are examined, it has been noticed that the reactive viewpoint and independent consideration of each risk do not prevent the emergence of new risks at the later stages of the project. Subsequently, the risk dependencies in the projects and the actions taken for these conditions were examined, risk responses to the successor risk effect (which is called "posterior risk" in literature) and risk prevention strategies were evaluated. Posterior risks have been found to be single, or interrelated, engineering, environmental, or project-related. If risk dependency is not followed in the program management environment, only the risks between the same categories will be examined and the interaction between the different risk groups will be ignored. On the other hand, the risk dependency account gives the project team the opportunity to show the interaction with other projects. For this reason, the risk should be based not only on its own influence but also on its indirect impact and posterior risk for project risk management. Program management may establish a management level overhead to establish inter-project communication, but employee level risk dependencies require a more effective explanation for implementation. Hence, dependency analysis models were searched. Tree based analysis, Markov analysis, Bayesian network and goal risk model were reviewed as common techniques for risk dependency management. All of the techniques mentioned work for the resolution of conditional probability risks. The risk of conditional probability will be examined in the next sub-section. The technical model to be elaborated in the thesis method aims to cover the deficiencies of the dependency analysis models mentioned in the literature. In thesis the proposed method should also address and display risk dependencies. It has been argued that when the targeted different perspective of the selected design structural matrix (DSM) is searched in the literature, it can be used for posterior risk solutions. As a result, different practices in the industry have been examined and it has been decided to implement it in a case. In the thesis case study, there is an automotive company producing heavy commercial vehicles. It is aimed that the vehicle's competitive position will have been protected by adding the weight reduction and fuel economy advantages that will create new option features as this automotive company will create variants in the heavy commercial vehicle platform. The goal of the platform program is to identify the posterior risks of the use of the design structural matrix and the domain mapping matrix (DMM) and the modularity to be provided by this use, in accordance with the risk management steps. The design structural matrix technique is used and the risks are visualized by proactive approach in the program feasibility stage. A structure that shows the interaction between the holistic view and the relativism has been created and presented methodically. The method has been tried with expert validation under the case study in an automotive company. In the specified scope, qualitative risk identification with Delphi technique was mathematically tested in the quantitative structure and synthesized by visualizing it with the compromise of participants' discussion on the created reconciliation platform. The output of the "design structural matrix" used is transformed into the "domain mapping matrix", where the interactions between the outputs are also shown. The posterior risk arising from the interaction of risks in the product architecture has also been resolved in this visual template. The advantages obtained from the modularity and posterior risk solutions are shown in the matrix. The diagram formed by DSM has become a matrix of meaning for practitioners. It does not provide a solution for every problem, but it can be used for risk response strategy application by visual method. It can help to improve it continuously. Complexity management is provided by the external and internal information interaction provided by the DSM method. When the system becomes more understandable and open to development in the new case, it is possible to identify component-based risks in the product architecture and create risk response strategies. The biggest difference is that the posterior risk is managed and eliminated with the modularity provided. The interdependent components are poured into visual diagrams in DSMs, common components intersecting in rework and modular groups caused by iterations are evaluated with prepared preliminary studies and risk mitigation strategies are applied by solving them with the added design rules. The design rules defined by the created DMM are made visible on the project target. This result can be said to be modular grouping, design simplification and risk response generation. This has made the iterations predictable. In addition, a reconciliation platform between departments was established in the feasibility stage. Interactions were shown on a component and target basis. Scope priorities were identified by determining the necessary assumptions and design rules. By commenting on the results of the results, managerial implications and future proposals for program management have been presented in a visual template in a modular structure. It has been seen that the most important condition for increasing the number of opportunities caught is the experience and choice of the expert group when this method goes a step further and more minimal risks are detected. In addition, a holistic view of the capabilities and behaviors of people working on projects may be studied in the future, suggesting changes in project organization structures, even in company management, after new applications are made. For the continual improvement proposal, it is possible to work on benefit only, without considering the risk. It has been shown that this method can be combined with more than one subject.