Analysis of Risk Dependencies in Collaborative Risk Management

Risk management aims to discuss the probabilities and consequences of risks on the goals of a software project. In such projects, there are dependence relationships between risks, although they are not treated yet by standard risk management practices. This paper is concerned with the analysis of risk dependencies, where these risks are assessed when multiple project stakeholders are involved in the development of collaborative risk debates. Our approach is based on a dialogue game protocol for collaborative risk management. This protocol mediates not only the discussion tasks of risk identification, risk analysis and risk planning, but also the collaborative debate regarding the identification and treatment of dependent risks. These risk management concepts are represented in a Bayesian network model for a risk management discussion situation, where alternative simulation scenarios can be proposed and tested in this probabilistic model according to discussion participants’ requests. As observed in a case study, results from this process lead to the enhancement of the argumentative analysis of risk management issues developed by project stakeholders. Keywords— Risk dependencies; Collaborative risk management; Dialogue game protocol; Bayesian networks.