Schedule Risk Management - Construction Project Scheduling and Control - page 383

equipment will raise the procurement risk. This makes new technology or specialized
technology a higher risk for the project. Even techniques that are common in some
parts of the country (or the world) may not be common at the project location or
for the project CM or contractor. A wharf constructed in Virginia was designed with
roller-compacted concrete, a technique that had only been performed on the West
Coast, and the first concrete placement was a disaster. The contractor suffered some
inefficiency from a learning curve because of a lack of experience, but fortunately this
was identified before the schedule was approved.
Subcategories are used to collect and organize risk factors, such as the stage of
completion of the contract documents, the age of subsurface information, the avail-
ability of as-built drawings, the water table, the contract type and delivery method,
the experience of the project management team and subcontractors, the quality of
the schedule, the availability of skilled labor, and many others. In the brainstorm-
ing session, the participants, preferably involving all of the project management team
members, should list every problem that they have experienced and then attempt to
categorize each one. It is useful to identify how and when the problem was solved and
how the risk was actually handled at the time.
2. Identifying Schedule Risks
The next step in risk management is to identify risks for the project at hand. Con-
ducting and facilitating a risk workshop is a good way to start the next step in the
process. With a good master risk register in hand, and an experienced and knowledge-
able facilitator, a short meeting with the specific project management team and other
important stakeholders can prove to be efficient and revealing. The discussion should
be broken down into the general types of risk discussed earlier in the chapter: general
duration uncertainty, specific risk events, and network logic risks.
3. Performing Qualitative Analysis
Once the specific risk events are identified and recorded in the master risk register, the
next step in risk management is to analyze the risks qualitatively. This process involves
making judgments about the likelihood of occurrence for each risk, as well as prioritiz-
ing the risks based on a combination of their likelihood of occurring and the severity
of the consequences. Qualitative analysis of risks also includes the determination of the
range of durations for the three-point duration estimates that are used in a quantitative
probabilistic Monte Carlo analysis.
In deciding on the three-point duration estimates, consider that the pessimistic
estimate should provide for the longest duration that is realistically possible, whereas
the optimistic estimate should provide for the shortest time that can realistically be
imagined for that activity. The most likely estimate of duration is the duration that
is most likely to occur, taking into account all known factors of project conditions,
resources, and difficulty of performance. These duration ranges will be used in
the Monte Carlo analysis, used for duration uncertainties in order to produce a