Summary

Good risk analysis is central to predicting how long a project will take. Task leaders supply estimates on how long the task will take most of the time, how long the task might take in the worst case, and what the likelihood is that the task will over-run the most-of-the-time estimate. The project manager will explain the what, why, and how of risk analysis at a team meeting scheduled at the start of the project's risk analysis meeting sequence. Each critical path task provides a “contribution” to the risk factor. Step-function risk tasks get special consideration—therisk factor is inserted after the last of the string of tasks that contributed to its calculation. The next task on the overall project's critical path is scheduled to start after the risk factor. This task leader will know exactly when he or she can plan to start his her task.

Risk analysis is discussed in more detail in Chapter 9.