Very few projects are ever completed in line with original plans and budgets. Unforeseen changes are inevitable in project management. But putting proper change control processes in place can drastically minimize their impact.
Setting a baseline is a crucial element of project management. Without a baseline, there's no way to measure performance or conduct an earned value analysis for your project.
A sound principle of project management is ensuring the baseline is set at the planning stage and not altered later – unless due authority is received from the project owner. A proper baseline process earns value and credibility for the project.
A sobering 9 out of 10 projects experience cost overrun, and experience tells us that schedule overrun is a common occurrence too.
To counter this, project professionals must ensure their project schedule is reliable, meets project requirements, and contains all necessary work.
What’s more, schedules should be built according to acknowledged best practices, such as the US Government Accountability Office’s Schedule Assessment Guide and the DCMA 14 Point Assessment. Regular health checks are another powerful tool in a project manager's arsenal, used worldwide by many businesses and governments to assess the credibility of the project schedule.
To that end, we’ve identified 12 key scheduling best practices. Does your schedule pass these tests?
Correlation is often crucial to the risk model. It helps analysts understand the often-complex relationships between events and the risks that can affect them. More than that, it plays an integral role in counteracting the effects of the Central Limit Theorem (CLT).
Complex projects don’t just stop. Even in times of uncertainty, organizations can’t simply stop executing a three- or four-year project because employees are now working from home. Safran software enables enterprises to continue their work unabated, helping teams stay connected and manage risk.
Hello, my name is Ian Nicholson, VP of Solutions at Emerald Associates.
Oracle Primavera Risk Analysis (OPRA) has long been one of the industry’s most popular risk management tools.
I myself have relied on it for the best part of two decades. However, technology has come on leaps and bounds since the turn of the new millennium. It’s progressed to such an extent in fact that legacy systems like OPRA are, quite simply, no longer capable of meeting the needs of the modern project manager.
Hello, my name is Ian Nicholson, VP of Solutions at Emerald Associates.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve gained a deep understanding of both the capabilities and the limits of Oracle Primavera Risk Analysis (OPRA).
Back in 2006, when it was still known as Pertmaster, it was more than capable of meeting the requirements of the average project manager. However, during the last decade, Oracle has been gradually sunsetting the product, downgrading it to “Controlled Availability” status last year. A move that essentially rendered it no longer fit for purpose.
Based on many years' experience in the planning and development of risk tools and applications, today we’re delighted to announce the latest addition to our Risk portfolio — Safran Risk Manager (SRM).
Due to release in Q3 2020, SRM was designed by Risk Managers, for Risk Managers.
Hello, my name is Ian Nicholson, VP of Solutions at Emerald Associates.
I've worked closely with Oracle Primavera Risk Analysis (OPRA) for the best part of two decades.
For much of that time, OPRA was widely regarded as one of the best risk analysis tools available. But technology has moved on since Emerald became the platform's exclusive Canadian distributor in 2001 — as have the expectations and requirements of the world's project controls professionals.
Qualitative risk analysis is still valuable for a top-level, holistic view of your project’s risk. Projects are exposed to all sorts of risks and it’s impractical for project managers to deal with all of them. In many cases, the resources spent to mitigate a risk outweighs the benefits of addressing it.
