Risk management professionals add value throughout the life cycle of a project by validating risk models and communicating project risks and potential risk mitigation strategies. However, the work of validating and communicating the likelihood of certain project risks is complex and time consuming.
The process of collecting and reviewing data that’s essential for modelling risks to projects can be hampered by work silos or competing priorities, but modelling project risk can be improved by software tools that model QSRAs more quickly.
What is QSRA?
Quantitative Schedule Risk Analysis is a valuable risk tool for project teams to understand cost and schedule risk as part of an integrated approach to managing project risk. Risk analysts use QSRA to improve the predictability and performance of a project and to evaluate the likely impact of uncertainty and of individual risks on a project's key milestones, activities and completion date. It uses probabilistic sampling techniques, such as Monte Carlo, on the project's schedule and its interactions with uncertainty and risk to provide meaningful and actionable information to drive better decision-making.
Faster Risk Modelling Performance Allows Risk Professionals to Add Value
Speed matters when it comes to risk modelling. Faster QSRA modelling means that a risk analyst has more time to validate and interrogate the risk model, which leads to a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the project risks and potential mitigations. And when it comes to risk analysis software, not all software is created equal. Recently, Redstone Risk Management conducted a comparative analysis of the relative performance of Safran Risk compared with Oracle Primavera Risk. The test focussed on ease of use and time spent to complete a QSRA. Using the same data points and running the analysis on the same computers, Redstone’s analysis showed that Safran Risk was 28 times faster than the legacy risk analysis software from Oracle.
With more time to validate and interrogate risk model, a risk analyst can add value to a project in three ways, according to Project Risk Manager Chris Ritson.
- Integrate time and cost risk valuations into same model to discover and examine patterns and present different relief scenarios that can be presented to decision makers.
- Explore targeted mitigation strategies to identify and determine cost benefit trade offs in various scenarios.
- Craft and communicate effective recommendations in narrative form to provide a story and elaborate a message that resonates with particular stakeholders so that they can make a well informed decision.
Risk management techniques influence project performance and deliver on the expectation of project value protection and value creation as well, according to Ritson.
Risk Management Delivers Value Throughout the Project Life Cycle
In the instances where Safran Risk is deployed from the start of the project, modelling that provides support for better decision making can be accessed more quickly and easily, which allows risk management professionals to fulfill a key aim of risk management: providing clear communication about risks likely to be encountered on the project.
With validated and interrogated risk models and clear communication around project risks, decision makers can make better informed choices about the company’s projects. In turn, better informed decisions lead to improved outcomes for a project such as improved timelines and fewer budget overages.
Communicating more effectively on meaningful outputs and alternative possibilities to decision makers means adding value, which creates further demand for risk management skills and proves out the need for risk decision models earlier and throughout the project life cycle.
For more independent advice on the benefits of using Safran Risk, visit Safran’s Resource Hub to find out more.
Using Safran Risk reduces the time to create a Qualitative Risk analysis. Watch Senior Risk Management Consultant Chris Ritson's five tips for finding and measuring value that was previously hidden from view using the tools in Safran Risk.
Our short video shows how risk managers can utilize that saved time to provide higher quality recommendations to mitigate project risks and strengthen relationships with project managers and other stakeholders.