An interactive multi-objective programming approach for project portfolio selection and scheduling

Organizations have to allocate resources, time, and workforce in many projects at the same time. Selection and scheduling of the projects have a significant impact on effective project management. However, most of the studies in the literature do not solve the selection and scheduling problems simultaneously. This study aims to design an interactive process to integrate selection and scheduling processes in the project management. For this purpose, a new multi objective programming model is proposed. The project scores are presented as belief degrees (i.e., distributions to linguistic term levels) that are gathered as a result of the weighted cumulative belief degree approach. By the use of the belief degrees, projects could be selected and scheduled based on the satisfaction level of the problem owner. The proposed model considers conditions and restrictions in management of business development projects such as the progress percentage of the projects in a period, the complementary and mutual exclusive relations between projects, etc. An interactive solution procedure is developed in order to solve the proposed model. The proposed model and the solution procedure are applied in an information technology company for their business development projects.