Research and Markets: Practical Schedule Risk Analysis - Order Report Now

DUBLIN--(Business Wire)--
Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/5932bb/practical_schedule) has
announced the addition of the "Practical Schedule Risk Analysis" report to their
offering.

Project scheduling is required for good project management, and the schedule
represents the project plan under a specific set of assumptions, often that it
will avoid new risks or even those that have occurred on previous occasions. The
typical Critical Path Method (CPM) schedule assumes that the project team knows
how long the scheduled activities will take. Yet, the experienced project
manager knows that duration values so precisely stated are actually only
estimates based on assumptions that could be wrong. A schedule risk analysis
explores the implications for the project's schedule of risk to the activity
durations and also identifies the most important schedule risks. This analysis,
building on and extending CPM scheduling, will result in a more accurate
estimate of completion and provide an early opportunity for planning effective
risk mitigation actions.

Practical Schedule Risk Analysis contains a complete treatment of schedule risk
analysis from basic to advanced concepts. The methods are introduced at the
simplest level:

* Why is the duration uncertain?
* And how do we represent this uncertainty with a probability distribution?
These are then progressively elaborated:
* How does uncertainty of activities along a path lead to more uncertainty of
the path's completion date?
* How can a schedule with parallel paths be riskier than each of the paths
individually?
* How can we represent risks about activities that are not in the schedule at
all?

Culminating in a discussion of the most powerful and advanced capabilities
available in current commercial software.

Schedule risk analysis is a process that is industry-independent, and the
methods explained in this volume have been used by the author with positive
effect in such industries as construction, oil and gas, information systems,
environmental restoration and aerospace/defense. The result is a book that is
not only highly practical; something that people within all types of projects
and in all industries can apply themselves; but that is an extraordinarily
complete guide to creating and managing a rigorous project schedule.

Key Topics Covered:

* Preface
* Why schedule risk analysis?
* Looking beyond the critical path method
* Uncertainty in activity durations: creating probability distributions
* Uncertainty along a schedule path: using Monte Carlo simulation
* A good project schedule is needed: Critical Path Method scheduling 101
* Collecting risk data: exploring methods and problems
* Where parallel paths merge: introducing the 'merge bias'
* Probabilistic branching: analyzing discrete risk events
* Using risks to drive the analysis and prioritize risks: introducing the 'risk
driver' method
* Schedule contingency plans: using conditional branching
* When activity durations move together: incorporating correlation
* Risk management in the organization: identifying the mature risk management
culture
* Appendix: the problem with PERT
* Index.

For more information visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/5932bb/practical_schedule

Laura Wood
Senior Manager
press@researchandmarkets.com
Fax from USA: 646-607-1907
Fax from rest of the world: +353-1-481-1716

Copyright Business Wire 2009