Understanding the Risk Analysis Results

After the risk analysis process completes, you can view a variety of statistical results. Available options may vary depending on the settings you selected before running the analysis. To ensure you have the most current analysis information, view the analysis start date, end date, and duration in the Risk Analysis Run Settings section. For information on Risk Iteration Analysis, see Risk Iteration Analysis Overview.

Note When Use Convergence is selected, the risk analysis statics panel displays Maximum Iterations and the risk analysis runs until the specified convergence criteria are met, or until the analysis reaches the specified maximum number of iterations. For more information, see Understanding Convergence. You can view the Risk Analysis Log to see iteration details.

Distribution Results

When a risk analysis is run, the Remaining Cost, At-Completion Cost, Duration, Start Date, and Finish Date are recorded on both the activity and the project as a whole. For each iteration, the risk may or may not occur according to its probability. If the risk does occur, the schedule impact and cost impact are sampled from their thresholds and applied to the project or activity. If an activity has uncertainty applied, the remaining duration is also sampled from within the uncertainty distribution before risk impacts are calculated. Non-working time due to weather risks will only affect the finish date of an activity, not the duration.

Each tab, excluding the Schedule & Cost tab, displays a probability distribution that represents the various cost, duration, and date values the project or activity could have. For each cost, duration, or date range, the graph displays its frequency and cumulative frequency, with horizontal lines aligned with the cumulative frequency. From the distribution, you can determine the likelihood of completing the project or activity within a certain finish date or cost. A legend at the top of the page identifies key statistical values based on Response Context, and you can hover over data points, bars, and indicator lines for more specific information.

In Chart Options, enter target values on the Finish Date and At Completion Cost tabs. While Risk Analysis shows when the project might finish and how much it might cost given the uncertainty and risk in the project, adding a target At Completion Cost or Finish date lets us see if that data matters by helping to visualize the likelihood of completing a project within a certain cost or finish date. For example, when determining how much cost contingency is needed at the beginning of a project, you can enter the At Completion Cost target to view the Probability of completing your project within that cost. Alternatively, you can enter a target Probability and view the corresponding At Completion Cost value required. Checking the Show Contingency option displays the contingency value right on the chart between the Deterministic and Target values. You can do the same for the Finish Date. Enter a target Finish Date, perhaps a Contractual Milestone date, to see the chances of meeting that milestone. Select the Show Contingency option to show the difference between the Deterministic Date and the Target Date. For Finish Date, you can also enter target values for milestones; however, At Completion Cost is project level only.

You can experiment with different values to see what costs and dates are realistic and achievable for your project. When you are happy with these values, select Set Target. Once you set the target, the values are stored for you to measure against as your project progresses. Each monthly update assess if you are still on track to meet your contractual deadlines.

Choose whether to show probability on the Deterministic or Target values, and toggle the chart shading to focus on Over Budget or Under Budget and On Time or Late data. Use the Show Lines selector to control which lines to display. When showing probability on the Deterministic or Target values, make sure that line is selected in the Show Lines list. Use Bar Width to change the duration or cost width displayed on the graph. The bar width is populated by default based on the most practical amount of bars. If a bar width will create more than 200 bars, that bar width option is not made available. For example, if the distribution spans one year, then hours and days are not available; only weeks, months, quarters, and years display as bar width options.

Use Select Results to view project and individual activity risk analysis results data on the graph. Use Search to quickly find a specific activity, and group activities by project or WBS. A selected project or activity continues to display as you navigate to other tabs. You can also set Probability and Finish Date targets for an activity; however, this option is only available at the project level for At Completion Cost. You can also choose to show contingency at the activity level. Details next to the graph display additional key statistics and analysis settings. The distribution graph displays durations, costs, and dates as configured in user preferences.

The Schedule & Cost tab displays a scatter plot graph to better visualize the likelihood of completing a project within a certain cost and finish date. See Working with the Risk Analysis Distribution Results Scatter Plot for more information.

Mean Impact

A risk mean impact analysis is useful to determine which risks and activities have the greatest average impact on your project duration and cost. The results of the mean impact analysis are presented in tornado charts, which rank each activity or risk according to their potential impact on the project duration or cost.

There are four views in the chart that allow you to focus on either the Contribution towards Project Cost or Project Delay, and then breakdown either by Activity or by Risk. This information can help you determine which risks you may want to address first, or which activities whose estimates you may want to revise in terms of duration or costs. The chart will also include other direct and indirect sources of delay and cost, so that all contributions to the Project Mean Cost and Project Mean Delay can be seen in the chart. For example, in the Activity Cost Contribution and Activity Delay Contribution, the contribution from Risks that are not assigned to activities is included as a single bar called 'Unassigned Risks'. In the Risk Cost Contribution, you can see contributions from Activity Uncertainty and Other Cost increases such as WBS Summary and Level of Effort Activities.

You can choose to view results as values, percentages, or both. Hover over a bar to display impact information including activity name, impact value, and risk name.

Risk Removal Impact

A risk removal impact analysis, also called a sensitivity analysis, is useful to determine which risks can have the greatest impact on your project. During the impact analysis, the system simulates the complete removal of each risk to measure and rank the effect the risk has on the Pessimistic Finish and Pessimistic Remaining Cost of the project. The analysis also simulates the removal of all activity uncertainty values and measures the potential Pessimistic Finish impact on the project. The results of the risk removal impact analysis are presented as a tornado chart, which ranks the risks that have the highest potential negative or positive impact on the project.

Each risk is represented in the chart by a bar stretching between the lowest and highest time or cost estimates for the risk. Each bar indicates the degree to which the removal of a risk can positively or negatively affect the project Pessimistic Remaining Cost or Pessimistic Finish date. A bar representing the removal of all project activity uncertainty values is also included in the Finish Date chart. This information can help you quickly visualize which risks can have the most impact on your project's cost and schedule targets.

By default, every risk in the register is included in the risk removal impact analysis. You can select risks to exclude from the risk removal impact analysis on the Risk Register page by selecting Exclude from Risk Removal.

For Level of Effort and WBS Summary type activities, weather risks are ignored and not included in the risk analysis. The schedule impact of a risk mapped to Level of Effort and WBS Summary type activities is ignored and not included in the risk analysis. However, the cost impact of weather risks and risks with a schedule impact is still included in the risk analysis for Level of Effort and WBS Summary type activities.

Threat, opportunity, weather, and risk factor type risks are all included in the risk removal impact analysis. While threat, opportunity, and risk factor support both pre-response and post-response analysis contexts, weather risks do not. The same weather data is used when the application runs simulations for both contexts. However, due to randomly seeded numbers used during the analysis calculations, the pre-response and post-response results for weather risks may differ. If this difference is significant, consider increasing the number of iterations run during the analysis.

Distribution Results

Mean Impact

Risk Removal Impact

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