Understanding the Results of an Integrated Cost-Schedule Risk Analysis

The recent rise of integrated risk analyses methods has created a new opportunity for complex projects to understand the dynamic inter-relationship of cost, schedule, and risk. NASA has been implementing Joint Confidence Level (JCL) analysis of cost, schedule, and risk for all major projects since 2009 in an attempt to proceduralize and codify the requirements for an integrated risk analysis product. Since the method of integrated risk analysis is itself new, the visualization of analysis results has been challenging. Starting with the simple X-Y scatter plot, this paper will explain how to understand the results of an integrated cost/schedule risk analysis using illustrative examples. The authors will also propose new advanced methods for visualizing results, and provide evidence of the valuable insight that can be gained from conducting an integrated cost/schedule risk analysis.