Practical Risk Analysis for Project Planning

Wonderful book! A simple but complete approach of the theme. Great for projects! — Janaina Medeiros Practical Risk Analysis for Project Planning is a hands-on introduction to integrating numerical data and domain knowledge into popular spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets to arrive at informed project-planning decisions. The focus of the book is on formalizing domain expertise into numerical data providing tools for assessing potential project performance and evaluating performance under realistic uncertainty. The book introduces basic principles for assessing potential project performance and risk under different scenarios by addressing uncertainty that arises at different levels. It describes measures of expected performance and risk presents approaches such as scenario building and Monte Carlo simulation for addressing uncertainty and introduces methods for comparing competing projects and reducing risk via project portfolios. No special software is required except Excel or another spreadsheet software. While the book assumes no knowledge of statistics operations research or management science it does rely on basic familiarity with Excel. Chapter exercises and examples of real projects are aimed at hands-on learning.