Call for papers: Recent Advances in Complex and Large-Scale Project Analysis and Evaluation

A special issue of International Journal of Engineering Management and Economics

Complex and large-scale projects present a number of characteristics that make their analysis and evaluation a difficult and often unsuccessful task:

• they are inherently risky because of long planning horizons and complex interfaces;
• the technology they implement is often non-standard;
• decision-making and planning are often multi-actor processes with conflicting interests;
• the project scope often changes significantly over time;
• the project complexity and scale are usually associated to a large number of (interdependent) variables to consider in the evaluation model.

Consequently,

• the analysis of duration, cost, and other parameters of projects becomes increasingly complex due to the multiple risks and uncertainties inherent in most projects;
• unplanned events are often unaccounted for, leaving budget contingencies inadequate;
• uncertainty about costs, benefits, and risks is the norm;
• alternatives are not systematically explored and worked out at an early stage.

Further, projects are often considered in isolation, and interdependencies and network relations between different projects tend to be underestimated.

Approaches, methodologies, and tools commonly adopted for the analysis and evaluation of projects may not be successful with complex and large-scale projects and cost overruns and/or benefit shortfalls for the majority of this category of projects is the rule. In particular, they do not take into account critical issues of project analysis and evaluation which can have tremendous significance for project performance :

• the flexibility (or inflexibility) of the technology involved with these large projects;
• uncertainties related to the possible variations and random errors in the values of the parameters and their estimates;
• uncertainties related to alternatives not taken into account;
• the predictably faulty judgments or cognitive biases due to heuristics and rules of thumb adopted to simplify decision-making.

This special issue will provide an international forum to investigate, exchange novel ideas and disseminate knowledge covering the broad area of analysis and evaluation of complex and large-scale projects. Experts and professionals from academia, industry, government and the public sector are invited to submit papers on their recent research and professional experience on the subject. High quality papers reporting on relevant reviews of existing literature,theoretical studies, case studies, surveys, experiences, success stories, real world examples and practice are all very welcome. Interdisciplinary research is also encouraged.

The themes appropriate for consideration include, but are not limited, to:

• Benchmarking and performance measures
• Capital budgeting techniques
• Cost and benefit measurement models
• Economic and financial evaluation techniques and methodologies
• Economic value added (EVA)
• Engineering vs economical approach
• Forecasting and estimation techniques and methodologies
• Human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty in project evaluation
• Learning-based project evaluation techniques
• Mathematical methods
• Monte Carlo simulation techniques
• Multicriteria and table methods
• Probabilistic cost-benefit analysis
• Project evaluation in an adaptive framework
• Project financing
• Project modelling approaches and methods
• Project selection techniques
• Public-sector vs private-sector projects
• Quantitative and qualitative risk analysis methodologies
• Real option theory
• Relevance and decision trees
• Uncertainty, ambiguity and risk management
• Unconventional approaches and methodologies for project analysis and evaluation

Important Dates
Submission of a two-page abstract: 30 April, 2010
Feed-back to authors: 20 May, 2010
Submission of full paper: 1 September, 2010