Project Customer Requirements Management Using Fuzzy Numbers

Project Management (PM) takes into account a large number of parameters of different nature. Their diversity and mutual dependencies are one of the main hindrances to successful management of projects. Certain parameters such as time, cost, risk are measurable, nevertheless they should be estimated before the project realization. These estimations are to an extent always vulnerable to uncertainty, owing to a multitude of unstable factors. Therefore, despite the measurability of such quantities, the problem of uncertainty remains, affecting negatively the project management process. In case of parameters that are immeasurable, the situation is much more complicated. As examples, let us take elements (phenomena, states) of mental, psychological character like Project Manager’s and project team qualities, stakeholders satisfaction, or customer ability to formulate his requirements. The fuzzy approach is commonly recognized as an apparatus to pattern uncertainty in a large family of research and practical applications. Since several years one can observe this trend in PM research. There is a number of papers on project time, cost, and risk management, employing fuzzy numbers as a tool of uncertainty modelling of these project parameters management. On the contrary, one can seldom encounter conceptual or applied research for immeasurable PM parameters. The objective of this paper is to offer a contribution to partially fill this gap. It will be achieved in the form of Project Customer Requirements Management Model, using fuzzy numbers.