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Risk Analysis

for Asta Powerproject

Version 12



Whilst every effort has been made to ensure complete and accurateinformation of the contents in this documentation, Asta Development plc

cannot be legally responsible for errors and omissions, or damages or loss of

equipment or information caused as a result of the documentation.

No part of this documentation may be reproduced by any means or stored inany for without express permission from Asta Development plc.

Copyright © Asta Development plc,

Kingston House, 5 Goodsons Mews, Wellington St, THAME, Oxon, OX9 3BX

Tel: 01844 261 700 Fax: 01844 261 314



Contents

Contents.....................................................................................................................................7

Course Objectives.....................................................................................................................8

Purpose of Risk Analysis..........................................................................................................9

Setting up the project for risk analysis...................................................................................9Setting minimum and maximum durations..........................................................................................................9

Assigning risk using code libraries.....................................................................................................................10

Setting reporting parameters for risk analysis.....................................................................12Setting the scope of the project to be analysed...................................................................................................12

Setting the distribution of results........................................................................................................................13Setting the number of iterations ........................................................................................................................13

Setting the sampling method..............................................................................................................................13

Running a schedule check prior to running risk analysis...................................................................................14

Specifying the Task Risk settings..........................................................................................14

Working with report results...................................................................................................15Generating report results....................................................................................................................................15Exporting reports to Excel..................................................................................................................................16

Identifying those tasks that are most likely to delay the end date of the project................................................17Using the Criticality Index Sensitivity...............................................................................................................18

Using the finish date likelihood and distribution...............................................................................................19Running risk analysis with costs........................................................................................................................19

Identifying those tasks that have the greatest cost risk.......................................................................................20Displaying cost likelihood and distribution........................................................................................................21

Displaying income likelihood and distribution..................................................................................................22To access the Income Likelihood and Distribution report:................................................................................22

Displaying margin likelihood and distribution...................................................................................................23To access the Margin Likelihood and Distribution report:................................................................................24

Creating a schedule from the risk analysis results...............................................................24Creating a baseline from Risk analysis results...................................................................................................25

Comparing simulated data with live data.............................................................................26

Appendix .................................................................................................................................28Accessing help....................................................................................................................................................28The Reschedule report explained.......................................................................................................................28

Sampling Methods ..................................................................................................................33Monte Carlo Simulation.....................................................................................................................................33

Latin Hypercube Simulation...............................................................................................................................34



8 Risk Analysis for Asta Powerproject

Course Objectives

Understand purpose of risk analysis within Powerproject

Set minimum and maximum durations

Setting reporting parameters for risk analysis

Setting the scope of the project to be analysed

Setting the distribution of the results

Setting the number of iterations on which the report will be run

Running a schedule check prior to running risk analysis

Setting the sampling method

Generating report results

Exporting reports to Excel

Identifying those tasks that are most likely to delay the end date of the

project

Use the critical index sensitivity

Using the finish date likelihood and distribution

Running risk analysis with costs

Identifying those tasks that have the greatest cost risk

Displaying cost likelihood and distribution

Displaying income likelihood and distribution

Displaying margin likelihood and distribution



Risk Analysis for Asta Powerproject 9

Purpose of Risk Analysis

The purpose of risk analysis is to enable users to:

Highlight those tasks that carry the biggest risk

Better understand the potential impact of risks and opportunities

Proactively manage risks before they cause harm

Carry out risk analysis and re-schedule plans all from the one system

Improve your project success rate

Increase ability to meet objectives and achieve profit margins

Track progress through a project so you can review and refine schedules

Risk analysis will help to identify the likelihood of a project finishing on time andon budget by applying the uncertainty added to your task durations. The result isa series of reliable possible outcomes that remove the guesswork for aninformed understanding of the risks faced. The two types of sampling methodthat Asta uses to create this risk are Latin Hypercube and Monte CarloSimulation.

Setting up the project for risk analysis

Setting minimum and maximum durations

The first stage to setting up a project for risk analysis is to set the maximum andminimum durations of each of the tasks. We will set these maximum andminimum durations by

right clicking on a task in the bar chart

selecting properties

task and risk analysis which will produce the following screen on to which

minimum and maximum durations can be entered:




Assigning risk using code libraries

The first stage of configuring the risk analysis program to work with risk analysisis to click on the library explorer which is marked on the quick access bar by thefollowing symbol :

Once inside you will see the screen shown on the following page:

Click on the folder marked as and the following screen willappear:




To create a code library

give your folder a name e.g “risk percentages”

open up the folder by double clicking on it

then add the entries by right clicking in the clear space and selecting new

code library entry.

The name of the code library should have the task percentage minimum andmaximum included in it, examples of suitable risk code library names include:

• 90% 110%

• Min risk 60% max risk 140%

Once these have been setup they can be assigned to tasks simply by dragging

and dropping the relevant code library from the project view on the left hand sideof your screen on to the tasks on the bar chart as displayed below:




Setting reporting parameters for risk analysis

Once the minimum and maximum duration have been entered click on the iconmarked as:

:

Then click on risk settings to set the options for your risk analysis report asshown below:

Setting the scope of the project to be analysed

On the risk settings you will see that you have the facility to run the risk analysisreport on the project as a whole or the branch, the branch would be the currentlyselected summary bar or expanded task selected in the project view asdisplayed on the following page:

Running the report on the view will run the report on the selected branch butwithout any tasks that have been filtered out.




There is also the option to filter out the interruptible tasks and buffer tasks asthese tasks have durations that can expand or contract when rescheduling.

Setting the distribution of results

The distribution can then be set on the right hand side of the screen:

The uniform distribution is useful when you know that the results will fallbetween two values but there is no indication as to which duration is most likely.For example a task will typically take between one and two weeks but there is

no indication as to which duration is the most likely.

The normal duration is used when you know that the task will fall between twovalues but will most likely fall midway between them i.e a task will take between10 and 20 days but is most likely to take 15 days.

The skewed normal is used when the results could fall on any particular valuebut are most likely to fall on the values in the program i.e you are confident thatthe durations set in the project are accurate but want to allow for some deviancefrom the specified values.

The skewed triangular is similar to skewed normal in that the results are mostlikely to fall on the durations that are specified but as the results move further and further from the predicted results they become less likely.

Setting the number of iterations

Under the iterations tab you can enter the number of iterations that you want touse in the sampling

If the number of iterations is large and the project is long then you may want toconsider running this process at night.

Setting the sampling method

The sampling method can be specified under the sampling options:

The Latin Hypercube option will produce better results with fewer iterations,there is more information given on these sampling methods in the appendix.




The end day can be held to specific days or times of the day bysetting the snapping as shown on the following page:

Running a schedule check prior to running riskanalysis

On the left hand side of the risk settings screen you will see the option to run aschedule check. Clicking on the schedule check will force the project to berescheduled. The reschedule report will highlight issues that you might like toaddress before carrying out risk analysis for example any unlinked tasks. Thereschedule report will also run even if this report is turned off in your reschedulesettings.

Specifying the Task Risk settings

To set the task risk click on the task risk tab at the top of the list of options:




Choose here whether you are using task min and max durations or a risk Codelibrary to identify the risk of your tasks.

The minimum and maximum risk percentage can also be set here is you havenot previously assigned a risk to the tasks using one of the above methods.This is a simple way of assigning a risk range to ALL TASKS in your project.However, in reality you may identify some tasks in your project as having morerisk of running late than others. In this case assigningthe risk to the tasks

themselves may be a better option.

In the example below the minimum duration OF ALL TASKS cannot go below80% of the original duration and the maximum duration cannot exceed 120% of the original duration:

N.B The percentage durations set here will apply on tasks where there has notbeen a minimum or maximum duration set, so a combination of both can be

used.

Working with report results

Generating report results

Once the parameters have been set click on and you will then seethe process bar at the bottom of the screen marking the progress through the

process:

Once this process is complete you will then need to click on the results tab tosee the risk assessed durations of these tasks:




Exporting reports to Excel

Once the report is generated you can then export to Excel by clicking on the

button marked as then select “export grid toexcel”, once this option is selected you will then need to give the file a name andselect where the document will be saved:

Then click on save.

When the excel file is opened the following columns will bedisplayed:




Identifying those tasks that are most likely to delaythe end date of the project

The tasks most likely to delay the end date of the project can be identified byrunning a sensitivity report, to view these reports click on the icon marked as

you can then view a report on the sensitivity whichwill show you the tasks that are most likely to impact on the end date of theproject as displayed on the following page:

These reports can be further refined by clicking on the options button, this willthen allow users to restrict the maximum number of items on the report, in theexample below this will only show the 10 tasks with the greatest durationsensitivity.




Under the path options you can select whether or not full path including thesummary bar names is displayed on the sensitivity report.

WBS: Check this radio button to indentify the work breakdown structure of thetasks in the sensitivity report.

Word wrap path: Check this box to word wrap the explanations label text if required, or clear the check box to leave it unwrapped.

You can also select whether or not you use Pearson or Spearman as theCalculation method as displayed below:

The Pearson method will be more strongly affected by extreme values than theSpearman method.

Using the Criticality Index Sensitivity

The Criticality Index Sensitivity report is used to identify the tasks in a projectthat appear on the critical path most often in the iterations that are producedduring risk analysis.

The critical path in the live data does not apply to all iterations, during riskanalysis the critical path can change with each iteration as different durationsare selected for tasks.

The Criticality Index Sensitivity report indicates the percentage of the iterationsin which each task is on the critical path as shown on the following page:




Using the finish date likelihood and distributionTo access the finish date and likelihood report click on reports and then select“likelihood and distribution”.

Under finish date likelihood and distribution you will see the minimum, maximumand current end dates of the project and the standard deviation. The standarddeviation is a statistic that tells you how tightly all the various examples areclustered around the mean in a set of data. When the examples are pretty tightlybunched together and the bell-shaped curve is steep, the standard deviation issmall. When the examples are spread apart and the bell curve is relatively flat,that tells you that there is a relatively large standard deviation.

Running risk analysis with costs




In addition to calculating a new end date of the project, the risk analysis tool willalso calculate the changes in costs that relate to the changing durations.

Firstly we will assign costs and income to the tasks in the project as shownbelow:

It should be noted that the first three tasks in this project are time based.Click on Risk Analysis

Then put your settings in place in the same way as we did for durations andclick on generate and you will see the results produced:

These are displayed in order of likelihood.

Identifying those tasks that have the greatest costrisk

The tasks that have the greatest potential to change the cost of the project canbe accessed through the cost sensitivity report. To access the cost sensitivity

report click onThen select sensitivity and cost sensitivity:




If you want to restrict this report to view only those items with the greatest costsensitivity click on options and then select the number of items to restrict thereport only to those items with the greatest sensitivity.

Displaying cost likelihood and distribution

The Cost Likelihood and Distribution report will identify:

The number of times each potential project cost amount was achieved

across the iterations that were carried out during the last risk analysisoperation. This is indicated by the vertical bars in the report and the left handy axis. The project cost in the live data is highlighted in a different colour.

The likelihood in percentage terms of a particular project cost amount

being accurate. This is indicated by the cumulative line graph and the righthand y axis.

The lowest and highest possible project cost amounts (ie best and worstcase scenarios).




The mean project cost amount, and the standard deviation from the

mean.To access the Cost Likelihood and Distribution report:

Click the Reports control on the Results tab of the Risk Analysis dialog

and select Likelihood and Distribution.

The Likelihood and Distribution Reports dialog appears.

Click the Cost tab.

Displaying income likelihood and distributionThe Income Likelihood and Distribution report to identify:

The number of times each potential project income amount was achieved

across the iterations that were carried out during the last risk analysisoperation. This is indicated by the vertical bars in the report and the left handy axis. The project income in the live data is highlighted in a different colour.

The likelihood in percentage terms of a particular project income amount


The lowest and highest possible project income amounts (ie best and

worst case scenarios).

The mean project income amount, and the standard deviation from the

mean.

To access the Income Likelihood and Distributionreport:





and select Likelihood and Distribution. The Likelihood and DistributionReports dialog appears.

Click the Income tab.

Displaying margin likelihood and distributionThe Margin Likelihood and Distribution report to identify:

The number of times each potential project margin amount (income minus

cost) was achieved across the iterations that were carried out during the lastrisk analysis operation. This is indicated by the vertical bars in the report andthe left hand y axis. The project margin in the live data is highlighted in adifferent colour.

The likelihood in percentage terms of a particular project margin amount


The lowest and highest possible project margin amounts (ie best and

worst case scenarios).

The mean project margin amount, and the standard deviation from the

mean.Note that unlike the other likelihood and distribution reports, in which the valueson the x axis go from the lowest on the left to the highest on the right, the x axisof this report shows the highest value at the far left and the lowest value at thefar right. This is because higher margins are less likely to be achieved thanlower margins.




To access the Margin Likelihood and Distributionreport:


and select Likelihood and Distribution. The Likelihood and DistributionReports dialog appears.

Click the Margin tab.

Creating a schedule from the risk analysisresults

Once the risk analysis results have been produced you will see that they arelisted in order of likelihood as shown below:

You can reschedule the project to match the results of one of these iterations byselecting the relevant iteration in the list and then click on “Create from

iteration”.

You will then be given two options once you have clicked on create fromiteration, giving you the option to either create a new schedule or create a




baseline. If you select the option to create a new schedule you will see thefollowing warning:

This warning is to remind users that the current risk analysis results are on theexisting schedule and therefore these results will become irrelevant once a newschedule is created.

N.B It is strongly advisable to save your project under a new name beforecarrying out this action.

Once you have said yes to this warning you will see the durations, dates andcosts of your project will now match those produced by the risk analysis.

Creating a baseline from Risk analysis results

Within Powerprojects risk analysis tool you can have the simulated dates,durations and costs in your programme to compare against your live project.

This can be achieved by creating a baseline from an iteration.

To create a baseline from an iteration firstly run the risk analysis process then

select the iteration that you want to be incorporated into the project as abaseline the click on “create schedule from iteration” and choose “baseline”.

On the next screen you will see the baseline manager open on the screen asshown below:

On the first screen you can name the baseline and add a description, oncethese are entered click on next to view the destination screen, on here you canspecify the location in which the baseline will be saved.




Unless you click on browse and select a new location in which to save thebaseline, the baseline will be saved in the same location as your project.

Once you have selected the location for the project click on finish and thebaseline will be created.

These simulated results are displayed in the barchart as red lines underneaththe tasks:

Comparing simulated data with live data

The first step to being able to compare the simulated data with the live data is toset the baseline created from the simulated data as the current baseline. Thecurrent baseline is used by the following columns:

Finish VarianceStart VarianceDuration varianceTotal cost variance

To set the baseline from your simulated data to be your current baseline click on

Project > Baseline Manager then select the relevant baseline:




Then click on set as current.

Once this baseline has been set as the current baseline you will be able to add

columns that are pointing at the baseline by right clicking and then selecting addcolumn. The finish variance, start variance and duration variance columns are

found under the list of date fields. The total cost variance column is located

under the earned value list.

You can also point cost and date columns to the baseline in order to make themdisplay simulated results. These columns can be pointed at the new baseline byusing the table definition. The table definition is displayed whenever a newcolumn is added and it can be used to point columns at the baseline bychanging the option under data as displayed below:

Once the data has been changed to look at the current baseline you can thenchange the column title to reflect the fact that it is displaying risk analysis resultsrather than live data.




Appendix

Accessing help

When working in this view if you want to look up help

information all that you need to do is press F1 and Powerprojectwill open up help on risk analysis as displayed below:

The Reschedule report explained

The reschedule report details the results of the reschedule and any errors and

anomalies that have come about as a result of the reschedule. The report is

broken down into several key areas which are explained on the following page:

Environment

This section of the report details the following:

• The long and short name of the project.

• The filename and location of the project - or, in the case of Enterprise projects, the project ID, data source ID and servername.

• The date and time at which the report was produced.

• The user name of the user that produced the report.

• The reschedule number - a number that identifies thereschedule. The reschedule number is increased by one each




time you reschedule all or part of a project. Reschedulenumbers are stored for each user, so in a multi-user projectyour own reschedule number is only increased when youreschedule a project.

Statistics


• The number of tasks within the scope of the reschedule -whether or not they were changed by the reschedule.

• The number of milestones within the scope of the reschedule -whether or not they were changed by the reschedule.

• The number of links between tasks within the scope of thereschedule - whether or not they were changed by thereschedule.

• The number of tasks and milestones within the scope of thereschedule that (i) have not been started, (ii) are currently inprogress and (iii) have been completed.

• The number of tasks and milestones within the scope of thereschedule that have been changed by the reschedule - ie thenumber of tasks and milestones that have either been movedor that now have a different amount of float.

• The highest logical precedence, which indicates the number of

links in the longest dependency path through the portion of theproject network that was within the scope of the reschedule.

• The amount of time that the reschedule took from start tocompletion.

Scope and options


• The area of the current project that has been rescheduled -

either All, Branch (with the name of the branch), View (with thename of the view) or Selection - as set using the Scope tab of the Reschedule dialog. Note that if only part of a project hasbeen rescheduled, the reschedule report only includes details of data that falls within the scope of the reschedule.

• The configuration settings that were in place for the reschedule,as set using the Options tab of the Reschedule dialog or theReschedule tab of the Options dialog.

Reschedule dates





• The imposed start or imposed finish date of the project, asdefined on the Properties tab of the Properties dialog.

• The data date - ie the report date of the progress period towhich the progress line was straightened during the reschedule.

• The project's prevailing contract date for completion - ie analternative date that is used for the calculation of float - if onehas been specified.

• The calculated earliest actual start - ie the date on which theportion of the project network that was within the scope of thereschedule was actually started.

• The calculated earliest early start - ie the start date of theportion of the project network that was within the scope of thereschedule.

• The calculated latest early finish - ie the finish date of theportion of the project network that was within the scope of thereschedule.

Errors


• Any tasks within the scope of the reschedule that are involvedin a link loop.

• Any tasks within the scope of the reschedule that end after adeadline that has been applied to them; both the deadline dateand the scheduled finish date are detailed.

• Any tasks within the scope of the reschedule that haveconflicting constraints - ie any tasks that have negative float.

• Any buffer tasks within the scope of the reschedule that arecompletely consumed.

Open ended


• The number of tasks within the scope of the reschedule thathave only incoming links or predecessor tasks on the same bar.

• The number of tasks within the scope of the reschedule thathave only outgoing links or successor tasks on the same bar.

• The number of tasks within the scope of the reschedule thathave both incoming links (or predecessor tasks on the same

bar) and outgoing links (or successor tasks on the same bar).




• The number of tasks within the scope of the reschedule thathave neither incoming links (or predecessor tasks on the samebar) or outgoing links (or successor tasks on the same bar).

Any tasks that have no incoming links or no outgoing links aredetailed.

Critical path theory demands that only one task in a projectnetwork should have no predecessors and that only one taskshould have no successors; all other tasks should have logiclinks that control their position. In the following illustration,milestone 'Start' would be shown as having no incoming linksand milestone 'Finish' would be shown as having no outgoinglinks

Tasks with constraints

This section of the report details any tasks within the scope of

the reschedule that have a constraint flag applied to them,together with the type of flag, the constraining date and thegap between the constraining date and the scheduled date.

Deadlines

This section of the report details any tasks within the scope of the reschedule that have a deadline flag applied to them,together with the deadline date and the gap between thedeadline date and the scheduled date. Note that even thoughproject buffer tasks have deadline flags applied to them, they

are not detailed in this section of the report.

Key milestones

This section of the report details any milestones within thescope of the reschedule, together with their dates prior to thereschedule and their dates following the reschedule.

You can configure this section of the report using the Keymilestones section group on the Options tab of the

Reschedule dialog or the Reschedule tab of the Options dialog:

• If you clear the Milestone report check box, this section of thereport is omitted entirely.

• If you click the List all milestones radio button, this section of the report details all of the milestones within the scope of thereschedule, regardless of whether or not they have beenchanged by the reschedule.

• If you click the Changed only radio button, this section of thereport details only those milestones within the scope of thereschedule that have been changed by the reschedule - ie




those milestones that have either been moved or that now havea different amount of float.

• If you select the Restrict to check box and select a codelibrary entry, this section of the report details only thosemilestones within the scope of the reschedule to which theselected code library entry has been applied.

Buffer Tasks

This section of the report details any buffer tasks within thescope of the reschedule, together with their duration, originalduration and buffer consumption.

Interruptible tasks

This section of the report details any interruptible tasks within

the scope of the reschedule, together with their duration andoriginal duration.

Out of sequence progress

This section of the report details any incomplete tasks withinthe scope of the reschedule that are succeeded by a completedtask, whether the completed predecessor task is linked to theincomplete task by a logic link or appears to the left of it on thesame bar.

In cases where a link starts on an incomplete task and ends onthe a completed portion of a part-completed task, this sectionof the report is affected by whether or not the Move partcompleted links check box is selected on the Options tab of the Reschedule dialog or the Reschedule tab of the Options dialog: if you select this check box, the reschedule will resolveany out of sequence progress in this case automatically, so itwill not be detailed in this section of the report

Unsatisfied constraints


• Any tasks within the scope of the reschedule that have a 'StartOn or After' constraint flag applied to them, whose logical linkscause the task to start later than the date of the constraint flag.

• Any tasks within the scope of the reschedule that have a 'StartOn' or 'Start On or After' constraint flag applied to them, whoselogical links are not driving links - ie where the logical linkswould allow the task to start on an earlier date had theconstraint flag not been applied to it.




If a task or milestone is constrained by both a start flag and oneor more incoming links, it is likely that the dates that arecomputed for these different constraints will differ. This sectionof the report enables you to identify such tasks.

Critical tasks

This section of the report details any critical tasks within thescope of the reschedule - ie those tasks that have zero totalfloat.

Longest Path

This section of the report lists any tasks within the scope of thereschedule that are on the longest path through the projectnetwork. The list is sorted by logical precedence so that thesequence of tasks reads from top to bottom.

A task is computed to be on the longest path if one or more of the following is true:

• Its finish date is equal to the latest finish date of the network.

• It has an outgoing link that is driving and that ends on a taskthat is on the longest path.

• It has an immediate successor on the same bar line that is onthe longest path.

If a summary task contains tasks that are on the longest pathand the summary task has an incoming driving link, thesummary itself is also on the longest path.

Sampling Methods

Monte Carlo Simulation

The Monte Carlo simulation recreates risk by creating results atrandom sometimes illustrated by showing a square drawn witha semi circle drawn within the square. If 10 rice grains weredropped over the square some would fall within the semi circleand some outside of the semi circle. If this action was carriedout 1000 times and 6000 grains fell inside the circle and 4000outside the circle then there is a 60% chance of a single grainof rice falling within the semi circle. The process of dropping therice grains is called an iteration and as you can imagine themore times the rice is dropped the more accurately we canpredict the likelihood of the rice landing in the semi circle asdisplayed below:




Risk analysis within Powerproject will look at the maximum andminimum durations of tasks and then apply the iterations toevery single duration between the minimum and maximum toproduce a likely duration based on the results of theseiterations. If there are more iterations then the result will bemore reliable if there are fewer then the result will be lessreliable but the risk analysis process will have taken less time.

So if we have a set of results below the iterations will be fired atevery single duration and the duration with the most hits will bethe risk assessed duration which in the example below is 15days.

Duration

10d 11d 12d 13d 14d15d

Iterations

2 3 1 2 2 90

Latin Hypercube Simulation

Powerproject can also use the Latin Hypercube simulation. Latinhypercube sampling will produce better results with fewer

iterations as it reduces an element of the randomness by usingthe full range of possible results. If a task has a maximumduration of 15 days and a minimum duration of 10 days theMonte Carlo method may produce 90 results producing aduration of 15 days which means that the risk assessedduration would be 15 days therefore 100 iterations is unlikely toprovide a sample big enough to produce the desired level of randomness.

The Latin hypercube will break up each of the possible resultsinto segments so in the example below, each day over the

minimum 10 days would only account for 20% of the probabilityso the results would not be skewed to such an extent as theywould be by the same scenario using the pure Monte CarloMethod.

Duration 10d 11d 12d 13d 14d15dIteration

s2 3 1 2 2 90

%contribution

20% 20% 20% 20% 20%20%

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=monte+carlo+simulation&hl=en&biw=1152&bih=608&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=-eEMKWo1_vVgCM:&imgrefurl=http://learntofish.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/calculating-pi-with-the-monte-carlo-method/&docid=z0eN9YujGuHS8M&imgurl=http://learntofish.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/pi_statistisch.png&w=402&h=362&ei=JrUyT7yIK9P68QPO2_yXBw&zoom=1

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