title: Modeling external risks in project management.
abstract: To ascertain the viability of a project, undertake resource allocation, take part in bidding processes, and other related decisions, modern project management requires forecasting techniques for cost, duration, and performance of a project, not only under normal circumstances, but also under external events that might abruptly change the status quo. We provide a Bayesian framework that provides a global forecast of a project's performance. We aim at predicting the probabilities and impacts of a set of potential scenarios caused by combinations of disruptive events, and using this information to deal with project management issues. To introduce the methodology, we focus on a project's cost, but the ideas equally apply to project duration or performance forecasting. We illustrate our approach with an example based on a real case study involving estimation of the uncertainty in project cost while bidding for a contract.
authors.affiliation: SAMSI-Duke University, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA. jesus_palomo@urjc.es
authors.forename: Jesus
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Palomo
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rios Insua
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ruggeri