For the last 25 years, we have provided our quality services to a wide range of sectors on over 600 projects. In keeping with the times and a fast moving economy, the G G Betros & Associates logo, name and trademark has been transformed into GBA Projects.

It is with great pleasure that we announce our rebranding and assure you that we will continue to provide our usual services with the same excellence, energy and enthusiasm as seen in hundreds of successful engagements.

GBA Projects aims to minimise the risk of your project under-performing, and to do this we offer the following services:

• Project Scheduling, Planning & Cost Control
• Project Controls Management
• Project Management and Program Directorship
• Construction Management
• Development of Project and Portfolio Processes, Procedures and Guidelines
• Development of Training Material for Successful Project Management Practices
• Expert Witness reporting and analysis

Critical to our services is our own tried and tested Project Management Framework for successful delivery of EPCM projects, software to analyse project plans for quality control and risk analysis software to make the correct decisions on your projects.

For more information about us, refer to our about us page and don’t hesitate to contact us either.

Also, if you are interested in receiving news, events, tips and project management information, please signup for our regular news feed. Or alternatively, you can subscribe to our RSS feed which is delivered into your inbox!

Last night, we gathered around the pergola with a beer in hand to witness the great shave. Normally one commences Mo-vember at the start of November.

About 3 weeks ago, Matt was going through his Movember routine, when out of the blue, Greg leant over his coffee and said: “well sign me up and if I get over $500 I will shave my beard off”.

Needless to say, the call went out and the amount was reached in no time…

Luke shapes the Status of David into the Boss’ face

This picture was taken after we had gone through several razors

Yo! That is a great Mo Bro!

So what are the lessons learnt from this escapade?

1. People are willing to dig deep and donate to a fantastic cause to have a good laugh
2. There is actually a bit of skin under the grey beard of our MD
3. You cannot chop down a forest with a pocket knife; get a good razor!

Well the new year has arrived, and with the majority of your project team returning from leave there can often be a slump before work really starts to take off again. It is important to ensure that you take every precaution to prevent the holiday period from causing stress to your project.
To our Valued Clients, Associates and Suppliers, two weeks ago we sent an email out urging you to dig deep and give generously to Movember, a fantastic cause for men’s health. This year, both Matt and Greg participated in the Movember tradition, setting a target to raise $500. If the target of $500 was reached, then Greg’s grey beard that has provided warmth, shelter and general distinction of character for the last 30 years was to come off. It is with great pleasure that we announce “$500 has been reached”.We’d like to thank all those who donated to the cause, we have managed to raise $555 for research into men’s health issues. We are aiming to shave the beard off on Monday night, so pictures will be provided on our website.
To be updated first thing Tuesday morning, simply subscribe to our notification service at

http://www.betros.com.au/?page_id=156

Once again, many thanks.

Regards,

The GBA Team

Dear Friends, Family, Clients and Colleagues.

For the last 30 years people have claimed that “grey knows best”. Whether it is old and wise father, old and wise Project Manager or just old, everyone has always commented on how distinguished Greg’s beard is.

Whilst Greg is not growing a moustache this year for Movember (he can do that in a day), he has decided to pick up a razor at the end of the month (November) and help raise awareness and funds for men’s health - specifically prostate cancer and depression in men.

If $500 is raised, OFF COMES THE BEARD!

Remember, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.

If you are interested in following the progress of my Mo, click here http://au.movember.com/mospace/454515/. Also, http://au.movember.com has heaps of useful information.

In many projects we have seen to date, the one technique commonly used to evaluate risk is Monte Carlo analysis. Monte Carlo analysis is a handy statistical method which we have covered in many articles over the past week.

In performing Monte Carlo risk simulations there are several requirements to be considered. For a description of these requirements, refer to this article.

It can be a confusing technique to understand and indeed there are many other techniques available to a project manager. However it is the Monte Carlo technique that removes the subjectivity of risk analysis, allowing a project to be simulated thousands of times over.

It’s formula can be quite complex and for this reason,we have provided a small paper introducing the analytical method.

Download: Qualitative Methods of Risk Analysis

For those of you watching intently, GBA is almost set to release The Schedule Doctor. A tool specifically designed to scan a project schedule, compare the data against a defined set of rules and then produce a report and score card.

The current release (release one) is near completion and we’ve posted some screenshots on our website!

For those interested in what a report looks like, there is one available on the website too. Click here for a direct link!

More information can be found on our website.

So if you think your schedules are feeling sick, then go to our website and put in a call to the Schedule Doctor!

Whilst it is a City in Monaco, it is actually (from a statistical standpoint) a collection of analysis methods that rely on random sampling to determine the end results of scenarios where uncertainty exists.

Recently we were asked to host several risk workshops to identify the requirements for a simulation:

1. Risk ID, Title and Description
2. Probability (assumption by team) of occurance
3. Basis of Probability - why did you choose that value?
4. Low, Medium and High Costs (if the risk occurs)
5. Basis of Estimate

Whilst there are many more components to risk management, the above 4 are the most simplistic requirements needed for a proper analysis. The reason is because:

Point (2) Above:
You need to, as a project team, understand what the probability is of the risk occuring. The monte carlo simulation will derive thousands of random percentage probabilities based on a probability distribution model so whatever value entered here is merely subjective.

Some simluations can use the subjective value to weight the random number, which tends to skew the distribution towards the subjectivity of your input, however most tools simply discard the risk if it’s probability is less than the random number found.

Point (3) Above:
You need to enter in the cost of the risk if it did occur. This does not mean setting a value to zero if you think the risk will not occur as this is not the point of it! You need to ask yourself:

“If this risk does occur, what will it cost us as a minimum, maximum and most likely?”

Essentially you need to ask yourself what the expect dollar impact will be if your risk does occur.

Once you have run your simulation you have the chance to select a Probability factor (P50, P80) that will be used overall to determine your final contingency. For example, P80 assumes that you need to reserve 80% of your simulated risk, which therefore assumes you have a higher level of uncertainty!

Monte Carlo Simulation is a statistical method for iteratively evaluating the cost impacts of risks given a three point estimate to highlight the uncertainty of the cost impact. A risk is defined with an Optimistic, Most Likely and Pessimistic cost that depicts the three possible cost impacts of a risk should it occur.

A simulation may span several thousand iterations or more. During a simulation, random numbers are generated from a probability distribution whose standard deviation is limited by the three point figures used to depict potential cost impacts. Each risk is iterated using it’s own distribution.

The probability distributions may be replaced with other distribution types (such as uniform or triangular) however the most common distribution type used is the Normal/Gaussian distribution whose characteristics include a bell shaped curve.

In some cases, team members enter their own probabilities against risks (called subjective probabilities) which are then used to switch a risk on or off depending on the value assigned to the risk and the random number derived. This limits the possible cost impact that is extracted by limiting the standard deviation of the distribution.

In the context of risk simulations, one would select a confidence interval (CI) which depicts the total uncertainty of the collection of risk. A value of 80% (referred to as P80) is a standard selection by many organisations to represent a scenario where there is a high level of uncertainty. Selecting a value of P80 suggests that you are 80% confident that should all risks eventuate, the total dollar impact to your project is the value that intersects that confidence interval.

Part Two: Requirements for Monte Carlo Simulations

We here at GBA are always interested in what you, our clients and associates, have to say about things. Tell us what you use for your projects!

It’s been a while since our last post, but we just thought we’d make a minor announcement or two!

Personnel

Firstly, congratulations are in order to Rachel who two weeks ago started in her new role as Project Manager for e3learning. Rachel has proven herself to be a most valued resource and we wish her all the best in her transition to her new company.

Our Software

Secondly, our development engines have been burning away and our new schedule health check tool is near completion. Aptly named as Schedule Doctor, the application accepts the following project schedules:

• Microsoft Project 2003, 2007
• Open Plan
• Primavera

The Schedule Doctor simply loads a schedule and uses 20+ rules for scheduling, developed by GBA, to analyse your project schedule. Performing a simple schedule health check before baselining and agreeing your plans could save you costly litigation and Extension of Time (EOT) claims later on in your project. But why? Why do we need this tool?

To put it simply, over the last 3 months, GBA has been involved in analysing over 10 different project schedules, currently in litigation because:

• Some schedules had no visible critical path due to poor planning
• Poor logic and relationships, relationships that do not make sense
• Inappropriate use of constraints
• Poor progressing standards, and inaccruate reporting of progress
• Very badly managed baseline data

Our new software will assist you in analysing your project for potential problems early on in the planning phase. For more information please jump over to our new Schedule Doctor Page.

It is anticipated that Artemis, Pertmaster, Open Project and MicroPlanner will also make an appearance in the second release.

We anticipate that you will gain satisfaction from the product because you will have not only a greater appreciation for project scheduling, but your agreed contract schedules will be of a higher quality and assist you to avoid lengthy and costly disputes.