مدیریت وابستگی پروژه در مدیریت پرتفوی Handling project dependencies in portfolio management

1. Introduction Construction is a project-based industry. The unit of analysis and focus of decision-making (bidding, risk assessment, etc.) are the “projects”. During decision-making, construction projects are generally handled as they are independent from each other and the decision support tools are usually designed to be used at the “project level”. However, most of the companies are executing projects simultaneously and there exist dependencies between these projects due to shared resources, similar technical requirements, physical locations, contractual agreements and similar external environment. When a project success is dependent on other projects, it can be stated that relationship exists between these projects1 . Projects may share many resources and may have common objectives to be achieved. Therefore, there can be a resource, outcome, market/benefit, financial, or learning dependency between projects2 . Thus, projects need to be handled from a “portfolio” perspective and managed at the “portfolio level” as it has been widely discussed in the literature3,4,5. Although, research on portfolio management has been widely carried out in the industries such as finance and regarding projects such as technology, innovation, and research and development projects; construction industry specific studies have been very limited in this area6,7,8. Portfolio success is considerably dependent on identification of relations between projects and generation of strategies accordingly2,4,9 . In his study, Rungi (2010a)5 states the importance of evaluation of dependencies between projects to achieve portfolio success and argues that interdependency management is a critical success factor. Portfolio management is a complicated process since it requires comprehensive analysis of strategic objectives, financial profit, project performance, demand conditions, resources, capabilities, risks and other similar parameters10,11.