@RISK for Project
Professional Edition
The Professional edition includes the features of the Standard edition as well as the follow.
Probabilistic Branching
Probabilistic branching allows a project to branch from one task to any number of other tasks during the simulation. Each of the task groups that could be branched to has a probability value. For example, upon completion of a design task, there may be a 10% chance that the bad weather construction tasks will be followed and a 90% chance that the standard construction tasks will be followed. Account for chance events when planning your projects!
If/Then Conditional Modeling
If/then conditional modeling allows you to check if certain conditions are true during a simulation, and if they are to change values in the project or perform branching. For example, the user could enter a condition such as “If Construction[Finish] > 1/1/05 Then Cleanup[Fixed Costs]=20000” or “If Construction[Duration] > 50d Then Branch=Temporary Office Space Procurement”. If a condition was true in an iteration of the simulation, @RISK will make the appropriate change to the project so the results include the conditional effect. You can even specify @RISK distribution functions directly in the IF/THEN dialog as a result of certain conditions. Save time by not having to define a global variable when you have just a few conditions to model. Control values and branching between tasks using logic statements that you define!
Probabilistic Calendars
Often you will need to model the probability of work stoppages due to weather, strikes, or other unforeseen events. By setting up Probabilistic Calendars with @RISK, you can apply working and non-working probabilities to any calendar event in Project!
Global Variables
Global variables can be used to hold values that can be referenced in @RISK calculations in your project. Variables may be defined as @RISK distributions, single fixed values, or even If/Then conditions that reference other variables. Variables are not attached to a specific task or field; they are attached to the project as a whole. A variable “Bad Weather,” for example, could be defined to occur 20% of the time. Changes in your project estimates could then be triggered when “Bad Weather” occurs.
Field and Macro References
@RISK Pro for Project also supports field and macro references in distributions. Task[Field] references and VBA macros can be used as arguments to distribution functions. With this new feature, @RISK distribution functions can be entered with non-numeric arguments, such as “RiskNormal(Design[Duration],5)”. This allows values for distribution arguments to change each iteration of a simulation, as values in referenced fields change.
Parameter Entry Tables
There may be times when you wish to assign a distribution to a particular field throughout the project, and you wish to allow other users to change the parameters of that distribution. Parameter Entry tables make this easy! For example, in a few clicks you could assign a Normal distribution to all duration fields your entire model, and allow others to make changes to the default parameters based on their expertise and data.