Depuis quelques années, de nombreux travaux de recherche se sont portés sur le domaine de la gestion des risques pour les projets de construction. Les projets de construction font intervenir de nombreux acteurs dont les intérêts et les besoins doivent être pris en compte dans le système décisionnel afin d’assurer le succès du projet.Une RBS (Risk Breakdown Structure) est une représentation hiérarchisée des risques d’un projet. Elle est composée de catégories de risque qui explicitent les différents domaines pouvant être source de risque. Ce type de représentation présente de nombreux avantages, la rendant ainsi adaptée à la gestion des risques dans les projets de construction : elle offre une vision synthétique des risques, elle est compatible avec la nature dynamique et évolutive des risques et elle permet à chaque acteur du projet d’avoir sa propre vision des risques. Cependant les RBS présentent aussi des inconvénients : il n’existe pas de consensus sur la façon de les construire, la définition des catégories de risque est souvent floue et non partagée, enfin il n’y a pas de règles permettant de propager les évaluations (qualitatives ou quantitatives) dans les branches de la structure.Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une méthodologie pour le développement de RBS sur mesure, c’est à dire adaptées à l'étape et au niveau de développement du projet et permettant d'offrir un point de vue adapté aux différents acteurs. Cela permet de poser les bases d’une approche dynamique, multi-échelle, multi-perspective dans laquelle chaque acteur, peut, dans chacune des phases, se concentrer sur certains risques par une décomposition adaptée de sa RBS. Cela permet d'identifier et de gérer les risques liés au projet de construction d'une façon plus formelle, plus efficace et plus systématique.En parallèle, des efforts ont porté sur le développement d'une méthode avancée pour l'analyse et la propagation des valeurs de risque par les RBS. Le but était de développer une approche cohérente afin d’obtenir des résultats réalistes sans souffrir des faiblesses habituelles des méthodes disponibles dans la littérature. La méthode combine les approches quantitatives et qualitatives, permettant ainsi à l'utilisateur de choisir, selon l'information disponible et la précision souhaitée le choix du type d'évaluation le plus adapté.Une attention particulière a été portée quant au développement de la base de connaissances, afin d'assurer la cohérence des données. La base de connaissance est composée de trois types d’objets principaux : les événements risqués, les catégories de risque et les arbres élémentaires. Elle a été alimentée par une analyse approfondie de la littérature. Cette base de connaissances est suffisamment générale pour couvrir tous les projets de construction et suffisamment précise pour être adaptée à un projet particulier. Elle fournit un langage commun avec lequel les risques liés au projet peuvent être décrits et discutés. Le processus de construction des RBS est basé sur une logique multicritère (degré de développement, satisfaction des utilisateurs, contraste des valeurs de risque) permettant de comparer les différentes RBS entre elles. La structure de la base de connaissance est conçue de façon à faciliter sa mise à jour et ses développements ultérieurs.MOTS-CLÉS: , , construction, méthodologie, bases de données. / In recent years, intensive research and development have been done in the area of construction projects risk management. The construction projects involve numerous participants whose interests and demands need to be considered in the managerial decision-making to ensure the success of the project. Risk Breakdown Structure is a hierarchically organized depiction of the identified project risks arranged by risk categories and subcategories that identifies the various areas and causes of potential risks. This type of representation has many advantages and is a suitable tool especially for risk management of construction projects since: it offers a synthetic view on risks, each stakeholder can have his own view on the project and it is compatible with evolutionary and dynamic nature of project risks. However, RBS suffers several drawbacks such as lack of consensus on how to develop an RBS for a new project, lack of clarity and inconsistencies in definition of risk categories and lack of rules enabling transfer of qualitative/quantitative information of risks across the tree. In this PhD thesis, we propose a methodology for the development of tailor-made RBS's which are adapted to several constraints: being fitted to the stage and degree of development of the project, being able to offer different views for the different partners. This makes it possible to establish a dynamic, multi-scale and multi-perspective approach in which each partner, at each desired stage, can focus on selected specific risks and divide the RBS's up into a greater number of subcategories in specific fields. It allows to identify and manage the construction project risks in a more formal, efficient and systematic way. In parallel, efforts have been devoted to the development of an advanced method for analysis and propagation of risk values through RBS. The aim was to develop a more coherent approach in order to get more realistic results without suffering from the usual weaknesses of available methods in literature to calculate the risk value of categories in RBS. The method combines consistently the quantitative and qualitative approaches, allowing the user to choose the best one for risk assessment at any level based on the available information and required accuracy.Special care was taken in the development of the risk knowledge database in order to ensure the data's consistency. A database which has three interactive components of risk events, risk categories and micro trees, and have been developed based on a thorough analysis of literature. This knowledge base is general enough to cover all construction projects but at the same time, specific enough to be adapted to a given particular project. This database provides a common language within which the project risks can be described and discussed. The RBS rebuilding process is driven in such a way as to make it possible to compare different possible RBS's according to several criteria (degree of development, user satisfaction and highlighting the contrast of risk values). The database is constructed in such a way as to facilitate further developments and updating. / در طي سال‌هاي اخير، تحقيقات گسترده‌اي در زمينه مديريت ريسک پروژه‌هاي ساخت و ساز و زيربنايي انجام گرفته است. غالبا اين نوع از پروژه‌ها در برگيرنده تعداد زيادي ذينفع (مالک، پيمانکاران، طراحان فني و معماري، سرمايه¬گذار، بيمه‌گر و ...) مي‌باشند که مدنظر قرار دادن منافع، اهداف و مطالبات آن¬ها در اتخاذ تصميم‌ها يکي از موارد لازم براي اطمينان از موفقيت پروژه مي‌باشد.ساختار درختي ريسک (Risk Breakdown Structure) که بازنمودي طبقه¬بندي شده از ريسک‌هاي پروژه ارائه مي‌نمايد، متشکل از گروه‌ها و زير¬گروه‌هاي سازمان يافته ريسک بوده و ابزاري بسيار موثر در شناسايي منابع و آثار محتمل ريسک‌ها مي‌باشد. اين نوع باز¬نمود ريسک‌ها داراي مزاياي فراواني مي‌باشد به خصوص در مديريت ريسک پروژه‌هاي عمراني و زيربنايي. بخشي از دلايل اين مدعا عبارتند از: توانايي RBS در تجزيه وتحليل ريسک‌هاي پروژه و اينکه با استفاده از RBS هريک از اعضاي ذينفع پروژه مي‌تواند ديدگاه خاص خود را نسبت به ريسک‌هاي پروژه داشته باشد که اين قضيه با ماهيت ديناميک و تکاملي پروژه‌ها به خوبي سازگار مي‌باشد. با اين¬حال، عليرغم قابليت‌هاي فوق العاده اين ابزار، RBS داراي چندين ضعف اساسي مي‌باشد از قبيل: عدم وجود راهنما، روش و اجماع در چگونگي طراحي RBS جديد براي يک پروژه جديد با ويژه¬گي‌هاي خاص خود، وجود تعاريف مبهم و بعضا متناقض ريسک‌ها و گروه‌هاي ريسک در RBS‌هاي موجود، عدم وجود روشي مشترک و موثر براي انتقال اطلاعات کمي و کيفي وقايع ريسک بر روي ساختار درختي RBS به منظور محاسبه مقادير ريسک هر گروه ريسک.در اين رساله دکتري، روشي نوين براي طراحي RBS‌هاي سازگار براي هر پروژه يا شرايط خاص ارائه مي‌گردد. اين RBS‌ها با مقطع زماني و ميزان پيشرفت پروژه و همچنين ديدگاه‌هاي متفاوت ذينفعان پروژه نسبت به ريسک‌ها سازگار مي‌باشند. اين روش متضمن اعمال مديريت ريسک پويا و ديناميک، چند مقياسي و چند بعدي در پروژه‌ها بوده و هر يک از اعضاي پروژه در هر مقطع زمانی خاص قادر خواهد بود بر ريسک‌هاي مورد نظر خود تمرکز نموده و براي کسب اطلاعات جامعتر، هر گروه ريسک در RBS را به تعداد بيشتري زير گروه تجزيه نمايد. چنين رويه‌اي ابزار و روش لازم براي شناسايي و مديريت سيستماتيک، موثرتر و رسمي‌تر ريسک‌هاي پروژه را فراهم مي‌نمايد.همزمان با توسعه روش مذکور براي طراحي RBS‌هاي سفارشي براي هر مورد خاص، تلاش ويژه¬اي براي ابداع روشي نوين به منظور کسب نتايج واقع¬بينانه¬تر در آناليز و توزيع مقادير ريسک بر روي شاخه¬هاي RBS اعمال گرديد. روش پيشنهادي، ترکيبي سازگار از رويکرد¬هاي کمي و کيفي ارائه نموده و کاربر قادر خواهد بود بر اساس ميزان اطلاعات موجود و دقت مورد نياز بهترين گزينه را انتخاب نمايد.براي اطمينان از سازگاري اطلاعات مورد استفاده در روش¬هاي فوق الذکر و ايجاد ادبياتي مشترک واستاندارد براي توصيف و بحث پيرامون ريسک¬هاي پروژه، دقت خاصي در توسعه ديتا¬بيس (بانک اطلاعات) ريسک اتخاذ گرديد. اين پايگاه¬داده که بر اساس مطالعه و تجزيه و تحليل دقيق متون موجود، استاندارها و گزارشات فني پيرامون مديريت ريسک پروژه¬هاي عمراني تهيه گرديده است متشکل از سه بخش اساسي پويا و توسعه پذير مي¬باشد: وقايع ريسک، گروه¬هاي ريسک و ميکرو درخت¬ها. در عين جامعيت اين ديتا¬بيس براي تحت پوشش قرار دادن انواع پروژه¬هاي عمراني، ساختار اطلاعات به گونه¬اي طراحي گرديده که توسعه آن براي تمرکز بر نوع خاصي از پروژه (تونل، سازه¬هاي موقت، ...) امکان¬پذير مي¬باشد.فرايند طراحي RBS‌هاي سفارشي با بازسازي تمامي RBS‌هاي ممکن از طريق ترکيب ميکرو درخت¬هاي موجود در ديتا¬بيس آغاز گرديده و سپس براي انتخاب بهترين درخت ريسک، تمامي گزينه¬هاي ممکن به واسطه معيار¬هاي کيفيت تعريف شده RBS (ميزان توسعه ساختار درخت ريسک، تناسب ساختار RBS با مطالبات و اهداف کاربر و کنتراست مقادير ريسک بر روي شاخه¬هاي RBS) مقايسه مي¬گردند.براي تسهيل کاربرد عملي روش¬هاي ارئه شده در پروژه¬هاي واقعي، نرم افزار خاصي بر اساس تمامي مفاهيم و الگوريتم¬هاي موجود در روش-هاي توسعه داده شده تهيه گرديده است. اين نرم افزار با واسط کاربر پسند، ابتدا تمامي RBS‌هاي ممکن را توليد نموده، مقادير ريسک گروه¬هاي ريسک را محاسبه کرده و به طور اتوماتيک براي هر RBS‌ پنج فاکتور کيفيت محاسبه مي¬نمايد. در گام دوم، تمامي RBS‌هاي ايجاد شده با استفاده از يکي از روش¬هاي تصميم¬گيري چند¬معياري رتبه¬بندي شده، کاربر قادر خواهد بود بهترين RBS‌ را انتخاب نمايد. نرم افزار قادر است به طور گرافيکي ساختار درختي تمامي RBS‌هاي طراحي شده را به همراه مقادير ريسک محاسبه شده و توزيع وقايع ريسک بر روي شاخه¬هاي RBS‌ نمايش دهد.

A recent trend in software industry is to provide enterprise applications in the cloud that are accessible everywhere and on any device. As the market is highly competitive, customer orientation plays an important role. Companies therefore start providing applications as a service, which are directly configurable by customers in an online self-service portal. However, customer configurations are usually deployed in separated application instances. Thus, each instance is provisioned manually and must be maintained separately. Due to the induced redundancy in software and hardware components, resources are not optimally utilized. A multi-tenant aware application architecture eliminates redundancy, as a single application instance serves multiple customers renting the application. The combination of a configuration self-service portal with a multi-tenant aware application architecture allows serving customers just-in-time by automating the deployment process. Furthermore, self-service portals improve application scalability in terms of functionality, as customers can adapt application configurations on themselves according to their changing demands. However, the configurability of current multi-tenant aware applications is rather limited. Solutions implementing variability are mainly developed for a single business case and cannot be directly transferred to other application scenarios. The goal of this thesis is to provide a generic framework for handling application variability, automating configuration and reconfiguration processes essential for self-service portals, while exploiting the advantages of multi-tenancy. A promising solution to achieve this goal is the application of software product line methods. In software product line research, feature models are in wide use to express variability of software intense systems on an abstract level, as features are a common notion in software engineering and prominent in matching customer requirements against product functionality. This thesis introduces a framework for feature-based configuration management of reconfigurable cloud applications. The contribution is three-fold. First, a development strategy for flexible multi-tenant aware applications is proposed, capable of integrating customer configurations at application runtime. Second, a generic method for defining concern-specific configuration perspectives is contributed. Perspectives can be tailored for certain application scopes and facilitate the handling of numerous configuration options. Third, a novel method is proposed to model and automate structured configuration processes that adapt to varying stakeholders and reduce configuration redundancies. Therefore, configuration processes are modeled as workflows and adapted by applying rewrite rules triggered by stakeholder events. The applicability of the proposed concepts is evaluated in different case studies in the industrial and academic context. Summarizing, the introduced framework for feature-based configuration management is a foundation for automating configuration and reconfiguration processes of multi-tenant aware cloud applications, while enabling application scalability in terms of functionality.

A recent trend in software industry is to provide enterprise applications in the cloud that are accessible everywhere and on any device. As the market is highly competitive, customer orientation plays an important role. Companies therefore start providing applications as a service, which are directly configurable by customers in an online self-service portal. However, customer configurations are usually deployed in separated application instances. Thus, each instance is provisioned manually and must be maintained separately. Due to the induced redundancy in software and hardware components, resources are not optimally utilized. A multi-tenant aware application architecture eliminates redundancy, as a single application instance serves multiple customers renting the application. The combination of a configuration self-service portal with a multi-tenant aware application architecture allows serving customers just-in-time by automating the deployment process. Furthermore, self-service portals improve application scalability in terms of functionality, as customers can adapt application configurations on themselves according to their changing demands. However, the configurability of current multi-tenant aware applications is rather limited. Solutions implementing variability are mainly developed for a single business case and cannot be directly transferred to other application scenarios. The goal of this thesis is to provide a generic framework for handling application variability, automating configuration and reconfiguration processes essential for self-service portals, while exploiting the advantages of multi-tenancy. A promising solution to achieve this goal is the application of software product line methods. In software product line research, feature models are in wide use to express variability of software intense systems on an abstract level, as features are a common notion in software engineering and prominent in matching customer requirements against product functionality. This thesis introduces a framework for feature-based configuration management of reconfigurable cloud applications. The contribution is three-fold. First, a development strategy for flexible multi-tenant aware applications is proposed, capable of integrating customer configurations at application runtime. Second, a generic method for defining concern-specific configuration perspectives is contributed. Perspectives can be tailored for certain application scopes and facilitate the handling of numerous configuration options. Third, a novel method is proposed to model and automate structured configuration processes that adapt to varying stakeholders and reduce configuration redundancies. Therefore, configuration processes are modeled as workflows and adapted by applying rewrite rules triggered by stakeholder events. The applicability of the proposed concepts is evaluated in different case studies in the industrial and academic context. Summarizing, the introduced framework for feature-based configuration management is a foundation for automating configuration and reconfiguration processes of multi-tenant aware cloud applications, while enabling application scalability in terms of functionality.

Many people do not like thinking about the future. If they do, over 50% of Canadians think “our way of life” (p. 7) will end within 100 years and over 80% of Canadians think “we need to change our worldview and way of life if we are to create a better future for the world” (Randle & Eckersley, 2015, p. 9). There is a good reason for this. Alarms have sounded over global urgent complex problems with potential for catastrophic consequences such as the development of artificial intelligence, climate change, mass extinction, nuclear war and pandemics (Marien & Halal, 2011). Society is also increasingly fragmenting as imminent crises build on lack of understanding, the sense of incapacity to act, fear, distrust, blame and a lack of hope. This struggle for humanity’s survival is complicated by the turbulent global environment in which institutions continue to follow path-dependent trajectories set forth in a different time and context. Governments at various levels face a problem of “fit” between current structures and processes, that have not progressed sufficiently to meet changing needs of a global society mired in complexity and governance challenges. However, hope exists. Incremental progress on many fronts and a massive amount of efforts and resources are being engaged worldwide. There are emerging fields, lenses and tools that can potentially alleviate complex problems and address this emergency. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand and assess dialogue-based foresight practices being applied towards complex problems in Canada to provide insights into how these practices can assist society to alleviate global urgent complex problems and their impacts, within this backdrop of looming crises. Foresight, alternatively known as future studies or scenario-building, is a forward-looking practice recognized and used globally with over 100 research organizations focused on foresight, widespread usage by firms and over 18 countries involved in foresight activities (Berze, 2014b). Overall literature findings suggest foresight is widely and at least incrementally effective with a number of impacts in various areas (Calof, Miller, & Jackson, 2012; March, Therond, & Leenhardt, 2012; Meissner, Gokhberg, & Sokolov, 2013) but the extent of this effectiveness, the mechanisms involved, and the specific foresight benefits per type of project needs further research and evidence. For instance, limited literature exists on whether foresight can transform complex situations and if so, under what conditions. Thus, opportunities exist for assessing and increasing foresight’s impact. This dissertation is a contextualized, systematic empirical study that taps into transdisciplinary literature and practice, case studies of how foresight has been used to address specific types of complex problems in Canada, as well as surveys and interviews with foresight experts and participants. This dissertation uses a foresight community scan and a comparative case study approach to provide practical and theoretical benefits to foresight and complex problem area stakeholders. The research focuses on studying the broad interactions of foresight and identifying the impacts of dialogue-based foresight projects on people and the outcomes of complex problems. The dissertation concludes that dialogue-based foresight is a valuable and unique practice for ameliorating complex problems and their consequences. Insights are offered towards dialogue-based foresight’s potential contributions within the context of other efforts directed at humanity’s struggle for survival and global complex problems. These insights can then foster the further development and application of dialogue-based foresight on a global scale to alleviate complex problems and their effects. The dissertation outlines recommendations on key next steps to realize these potential contributions. / Graduate