Judgment-based cross-impact method for predicting cost variance for highly uncertain projects

Construction projects are very sensitive to project-specific conditions. Any possible combination of risk factors can significantly affect the success of a project's performance. Risk analysis has been used to predict the impact of various uncertainties that are inherent in construction projects. However, one key problem with present-day risk analysis methods is that they are basically mathematical or probability-oriented approaches which are not easy to adopt in real business because they easily become complex to capture the relations between the complex variables. This paper presents the use of a judgment-based method called Cross Impact Analysis (CIA) to model the cost risks of a construction project in a highly uncertain environment and to predict their impact on cost variance in the early stage of a bidding process. Then, a case study is performed to demonstrate the approach, which allows complex risk analysis to be performed simply by common users in capturing the risk variables' relations, while maintaining an acceptable accuracy limit.