LESSON 6-6: Applying Activity Uncertainty

This tutorial describes:
• Activity Uncertainty
• How to Apply Activity Uncertainty 
• Uncertainty Distribution
• How to Run a Risk Analysis when settled on the percentages to use

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1. Activity Uncertainty.
Though often overlooked by project managers, activity uncertainty can have a surprising effect on project duration and cost. Consider a risk analysis run on a project with no activity uncertainty and no risks. The deterministic or calculated finish date is generated with 100% probability. This is how a standard project schedule works. Primavera Cloud manages activity uncertainty by enabling you to specify a range of values for each activity duration.

2. Apply Activity Uncertainty dialog box.
Let's add Minimum, Most Likely, and Maximum Duration columns to the view. On the Actions menu, click Apply Activity Uncertainty. The default uncertainty distribution type is triangle defined by three values - Minimum, Most Likely, and Maximum. On each iteration of a risk analysis, Prime selects a duration between the minimum and maximum values specified for each activity with selection weighted toward the most likely value. A uniform distribution is defined by minimum and maximum values.

3. Uncertainty Distribution.
On each iteration of a risk analysis, Primavera Cloud selects a value between the minimum and maximum specified for each activity with all values being weighted equally. Uniform distributions are the default for risk register threshold values. Activity uncertainty is applied as a percentage of each activity's remaining duration. The percentages can be adjusted, narrowed for simple or familiar projects, or widened for more complex, less familiar projects.

4. Run a Risk Analysis when settled on the percentages to use.
When you have settled on the percentages to use, click Apply. Minimum, most likely, and maximum duration values are applied to each activity but can also be adjusted directly on the schedule grid. Now let's run a risk analysis.
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Even with no risk events included in the analysis, activity uncertainty alone reduces the probability of achieving the deterministic finish date to 9%.
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