FCM WIZARD IN ACTION SCENARIO: RISK MANAGEMENT OF IT PROJECTS Main developers: Gonzalo NÁPOLES and...

FCM WIZARD IN ACTION

SCENARIO: RISK MANAGEMENT OF IT PROJECTSMain developers: Gonzalo NÁPOLES and Isel GRAU

Supervisors: Elpiniki PAPAGEORGIOU and Koen VANHOOF

Scenario description• This scenario deals with a Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM) for modeling the most relevant risks of IT

project implementations in order to reduce these risks in the future. This model contains only 13 concepts . The interesting properties of the model are that it has only positive connection weights and every concept has both inputs from and outputs to other concepts, except one which has a sole output only.

The proposed FCM comprises 13 concepts, a panel of 10 experts were used to determine key concepts of the model as well as their interconnections among detected concepts.

SALMERON J., FUZZY COGNITIVE MAPS-BASED IT PROJECTS RISKS SCENARIOS, FUZZY COGNITIVE MAPS, SPRINGER BERLIN HEIDELBERG, (2010) 201-215.

Concept Description Concept DescriptionC1 Wrong IT tools selection C11 Wrong legacy systems management

C2 IT software releases instability C12 IT security issues

C3 Complex IT integration within current infrastructure

C13 Low Performance

C4 Unrealistic expectations

C5 Low Top management support

C6 Low users’ involvement

C7 Inadequate consulting services

C8 High costs

C9 Wrong IT project management

C10 High reliability requirements


Construction of the causal weights• Causal weights for this case study were obtained from the aggregation of criteria of an expert panel

of ten experts. These experts had formed or form part of an IT implementation team or are working as IT manager, both with more than ten years of experience. They belonged to both the public and private sectors from Europe (6) and USA (4). This team composition guarantees the experts who are finally chosen having thorough profound IT knowledge.

• The aggregation process was perform using the Augmented FCM methodology, which combines additively FCM matrices of each expert. The resulting Augmented FCM includes the union of the causal nodes for all the experts.


Create a new map by using the menu File |New Map. The canvas is immediately cleaned and ready to be used in a new map.

Designing the FCM model


Designing the FCM model• Add concepts and causal links between them by drag and dropping from the source concept to the

target one. Concepts denote variables of the problem described before.

During the modeling phase the designer write the value of each causal weight.


• Set initial values for concepts and trigger the inference Run | Run Inference Process. Next a plotter will be showed illustrating the inference process in detail.

FCM Inference


In this case study, activating the C7 and C9 (“Inadequate consulting services” and “Wrong IT project management”) leads to the activation of several other concepts. The stable vector shows as the initial activated risks have a strong influence over the remainder risks.

- Findings confirm the critical role of project management and external consultants in IT projects.

- It is coherent with the importance of project management and consulting services in IT projects.

- According to this, one critical factor to a successful IT implementation is to maintain an effective and smooth consulting process and an effective IT project management.

See reference above for more information and results on the case study.

Interpretation of the modeled system


FCM WIZARD IN ACTION

SCENARIO: RISK MANAGEMENT OF IT PROJECTSMain developers: Gonzalo NÁPOLES and Isel GRAU

Supervisors: Elpiniki PAPAGEORGIOU and Koen VANHOOF

FCM WIZARD IN ACTION SCENARIO: RISK MANAGEMENT OF IT PROJECTS Main developers: Gonzalo NÁPOLES and...

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