Decision Analysis and Data Science Conference Workshop

Photograph Credit: Stuart Kasdorf Photographics

Projects are frequently over cost (budget) and/or behind schedule. Cost overruns are common in infrastructure, building, and technology projects. For IT projects, a 2004 industry study by the Standish Group found an average cost overrun of 43 percent; 71 percent of projects came in over budget, exceeded time estimates, and had estimated too narrow a scope; and total waste was estimated at $55 billion per year in the US alone.

Management can make better decisions whether to do a project or how to do a project if they better understand the uncertainty in schedule and cost uncertainty. Deterministic assessments often have less than a 5-10% chance of being achieved (90% chance of being over cost and behind schedule).

At the DAAG 2019: Data + Decisions event in Colorado, Engcomp’s President and Senior Risk Analyst, Jason Mewis, will co-lead a workshop to address these types of challenges:

• Looking at how decision quality principles can assist in better assessing cost and schedule using probabilistic analysis

• Conducting an abbreviated training in calibrating Subject Matter Experts

• Discussing what should be assessed by the SME and alternatives for using that information

• Demonstrating how a probabilistic model with multiple schedules and costs is used to generate distributions for schedule and costs that are integrated

• Identifying which tasks would have the largest impact on schedule

• Showing how to incorporate mitigations and compare to the original CSRA results or alternative mitigations

For more information about this event, please visit DAAG’s website.