Fuse White papers

After spending the past decade or more dedicated to project management, I noticed during the economic downturn last year a very surprising trend. Despite the significant reduction in the number of major Capex projects being sanctioned and funded, the need for third party assistance with schedule analysis and risk assessments actually increased dramatically. After digging into this a little more deeply, I came to the following conclusion: savvy project schedulers are at risk of becoming a dying breed and as project management specialists, we need to do everything we can to reverse this trend. ~ Dr. Dan Patterson, PMP CEO & President, Acumen

This white paper describes the need for and value of adopting a single and standardized index (score) to reflect the quality of a project schedule. This discussion is based upon the recently launched Schedule Index™, which is now available in a standard format to any project team wanting to determine how their schedule quality ranks. In addition, the paper describes the value of using Cloudbased technology to not only score your project, but also compare the results with other similar projects, providing a means of benchmarking your project against others.

Despite the project risk software tools available today, the process of conducting a risk workshop, and subsequent risk model development, continues to be a major headache for many projects and often is at best, an evil necessary that is executed simply to follow company or project protocol.

With this perception, getting a project team engaged and onboard with the risk assessment process can often be as challenging as building the risk model itself.

This paper introduces the use of project metrics and how they can provide a unique insight into large, complex projects. Traditional scheduling tools that use proven techniques such as Critical Path Methodology (CPM) are very useful for planning and determining the likes of sequencing of work but they can also result in very complex outputs in the form of network diagrams and Gantt charts.

Overcoming the Shortcomings of Schedule Confidence Levels

This paper discusses the use of an alternate risk exposure metric called Risk Range Certainty (RRC). This metric has been developed due to risk reporting biases resulting from focus on risk confidence level and Joint Confidence Level (JCL).

An Introduction to the S1 > S5 Schedule Maturity Framework

This paper introduces a scheduling maturity framework designed to provide a structured and repeatable approach to developing sound and realistic project plans.

Enhanced Schedule Delay Forensics through Project Metrics and Ribbon Analysis

This paper discusses the importance of establishing a sound schedule basis and ensuring valid risk inputs so as to generate an accurate and realistic schedule risk model. A technique for ensuring both of these criteria is discussed using specific metrics targeted at risk model validation.

As project management software tools have evolved, project risk analysis has gained a reputation for being overly complicated and disconnected from the real world of successful project execution. This white paper discusses reporting techniques and new ways of interpreting risk analysis results that actually enable the project team to make proactive changes in reducing their risk exposure and increasing their chance of successful on-time, on-budget completion.

This white paper introduces a new, highly compelling technique for accelerating project schedules. Unlike traditional techniques such as ‘network crashing’, goal-based schedule acceleration results in informed acceleration decisions based on criteria that are relevant and specific to your project. In short: targeted, meaningful changes to a schedule so as to achieve acceleration, yet still retain realism and achievability.

Both the failure and cost/schedule overruns of major CapEx projects receive a high degree of public and stakeholder scrutiny and publicity. However, rarely is the corresponding planning quality and project management maturity given the same level of detailed investigation. Arguably, focus is generally given to the result of failure without also considering the root cause.

As such, this white paper is the result of a research project that was carried out during the summer of 2011 to investigate the relationship, if any, between project planning quality and project execution success. In other words, this project set out to determine if poor planning results in project cost and schedule overruns and conversely, does sound planning help ensure on time and successful project completion?