Is your project scheduled during a period of time that may cause delay? Deltek Acumen Risk windows can model this risk event as a risk window. Let’s take a closer look at this.
Project risk identifies the potential impact of duration and cost uncertainty and unforeseen events, which may have a negative or positive impact on the duration or cost of the project. Deltek Acumen models duration uncertainty and schedule risk events. It also can define cost uncertainty and cost risk events.
Risk events in Deltek Acumen may include threats, opportunities, calendar events, or risk windows. Threats are risk events that may have a negative impact on schedule duration and/or cost. Opportunities are elements that the project could exploit to its advantage. Calendar event risk types consider potential discrete events during a period of time. These are most likely weather-related schedule impacts, such as construction rain delays during a rainy season.
In a previous article Deltek Acumen Risk and Adverse Weather Days we considered The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) monthly forecast of adverse weather. This includes the effect of temperature, snowfall, and rain, to model the potential impact of extension to a project schedule.
Further, Deltek Acumen Risk windows define risks that are a period of time and may cause delay to a schedule. These are periods of time to avoid in scheduling a project. An example risk window is the risk of delay because of a frozen sea, which occurs during the winter months. The frozen sea may prohibit transport for a period of time. The deep freeze is most likely to occur from January to February but may start as early as December and finish as late as March.
Deltek Acumen can model this uncertainty in the deep freeze start and finish dates and support the project manager in scheduling an activity or the project to avoid this period of time. Another example risk window is potential delays due to Caribou migration. You cannot transport through certain regions of Alaska and Canada when Caribou are migrating.
The risk window in Deltek Acumen models the uncertainty in the start and finish dates of the Caribou migration and schedules the project around this migration. So, Calendar events are risk events that occur during periods of time, and, whose impact, may extend the schedule and the risk windows are periods of time to avoid scheduling an activity or the project altogether.
This article demonstrates a Deltek Acumen Risk window using risk analysis and the potential impact of a risk window event on a project schedule.
We have in Figure 1 our demonstration Primavera P6 project
Figure 1
This is a schedule for an underground piping refit project. This project has several risk events that may potentially affect the duration and cost of the schedule. What we want to demonstrate today is how to account for the potential project delay due to Eagle Nesting in the vicinity of the work site.
Construction suspends completely when eagles are nesting near the construction site. In this region Eagles are known to lay eggs in the last days of February to the early days of March. They then nest for 10 to 12 weeks. The laying of eggs or start of nesting is 2/26 minimum, 2/28 most likely, and 3/2 maximum. The nest empties 6/20 minimum, 7/20 most likely, and 7/31 maximum. Deltek Acumen models this uncertain risk windows’ potential delay to the pipe refit project.
We first run the Deltek Acumen Monte Carlo risk analysis for Uncertainty only and no risk events, Figure 2.
Figure 2
Note that the activity duration estimates are very conservative, which is at the green shading on the duration uncertainty bar settings, Figure 2. The histogram results of this analysis are displayed in Figure 3.
Figure 3
In Figure 4 we add these results to the risk comparison.
Figure 4
Continuing we select Right Panel | Risk Register to display our projects risk register, Figure 5.
Figure 5
In Figure 6 we have Deltek Acumen’s default risk event.
Figure 6
We delete this risk event and in Figure 7 we choose to add a risk event to the entire project.
Figure 7
Note the orange checkered box we selected to map the risk event to the entire project. In Figure 8 we have our risk event mapped to the whole project.
Figure 8
Proceeding we set the risk event type to risk window, Figure 9.
Figure 9
We then name the risk window, Eagle Nesting Season, Figure 10.
Figure 10
In Figure 11 we choose exchange panels to view and set the details of our risk window.
Figure 11
Although Eagle Nesting commences in February, the earliest date we can enter for the risk window is the project start date. Therefore, we set the minimum, most likely, and maximum start all to the start date of the project, June 15th.
Figure 12
The finish dates of our risk window match the minimum, most likely, and maximum finish dates of our Eagle Nesting season. Note also that we toggle on to prevent activities from splitting across the event/window. This prevents us from having to suspend work for the Eagle Nesting. The work therefore will be continuous from start to finish. Figure 13 displays the mappings tab for our schedule.
Figure 13
This lists all the activities in the schedule that are mapped to our risk window. For our project all activities are mapped to the risk window. Continuing in Figure 14 we again exchange panels after setting the dates and confirming the associated activities of our risk window.
Figure 14
We then elect to run the Monte Carlo risk analysis for duration uncertainty and risk events, which includes our risk window, Figure 15.
Figure 15
Figure 16 displays the resulting histogram results.
Figure 16
In Figure 17 we again choose to add the results to the risk comparison.
Figure 17
In Figure 18, we select risk exposure comparison from the right panel drop down menu.
Figure 18
In Figure 19 we have our risk comparison.
Figure 19
We then select to display the variance at the 80% confidence level. In Figure 20 we see that we must add 35-days to our project schedule to achieve a date at the 80% confidence level.
Figure 20
When we only consider duration uncertainty and no Eagle Nesting Season, we are 80% confident of completing the project on 7/13. When we take into account Eagle Nesting season, we are 80% confident of an 8/17 finish date. The Eagle Nesting risk window therefore adds 35-days onto our project when we consider completion dates at the 80% confidence level.
Summary
Deltek Acumen risk windows allow us to consider delays due to various seasonal impacts, such as freezing weather, Caribou migration, or Eagle Nesting. Acumen considers variances in the risk window start and finish dates and can schedule the project around those dates.
Acumen Risk windows thus help to schedule the project around seasonal events that must be avoided for successful completion of the project or for environmental reasons.
Another example is using an Acumen Risk window to avoid scheduling the project during hurricane season. If, however, you simply want to model the probability and impact of adverse weather throughout the days of your scheduled project, such as a hurricane or other rain delays, the before mentioned Acumen calendar event, would be more suited to this situation.