Schedule Risk Management - Construction Project Scheduling and Control - page 371

A large volume of change orders on a project will affect employee morale; there
is nothing worse than asking a craftsman to rip out recently installed high-quality
woodwork because of a requested change. If the CM has a good change management
process in place, the risks of negative pressures due to changes are lowered. Without
a good change management process, the risks may be significant enough to derail the
project's completion.
Most conversations about risk are related to negative risks that impair successful
performance, but often there are opportunities that would be overlooked without
good risk assessment. A renovation project that calls for a three-story masonry wall
to be demolished to the foundation in order to install a beam-and-column system
could be redesigned with a pin beam temporary support structure, allowing the upper
two stories to remain in place, saving time and money, as well as removing some risk.
The brainstorming about risks needs to include looking for opportunities that could
positively impact the project's time for completion.
It seems obvious that failure to plan for many risks that often can affect project
performance will render the planning less accurate. Without risk management, every
item that might appear on a risk register (a checklist of potential risks) will be a surprise
to the project team if it should happen, diverting attention and emphasis from the
project management and consuming valuable resources. Most disputes arise from risks
that likely were not considered at the inception of the project but that could have been
eliminated or mitigated with good risk planning.
Once a company develops a regular risk management culture, the risk register
generates many of the same risks on project after project. However, a company's risk
register should not be a fixed template, used as is on all of its projects. The project
teammust update and customize the list for each project, and taking into consideration
that project's own risks. If these lessons are learned and incorporated into the project
schedule using a risk management program, they become invaluable in helping to
minimize threats that carry negative impacts and in taking advantage of opportunities
that can have positive impacts on the project's completion.
Schedule risks fall into several broad areas:
1. General duration uncertainty
2. Specific risk events
3. Network logic risks that exist or are increased as a result of activity rela-
tionships
Each of these types of risk is analyzed differently using different tools.
General Duration Uncertainty
General duration uncertainty is the risk resulting from the following conditions:
• The deterministic durations estimated by the stakeholders are inaccurate or
overly simplistic, or they are based on assumptions that are not necessarily
correct or accurate.