A recent question from a reader wanted to view a tabulated list of risk events associated with a respective activity in Deltek Acumen. The good news is Deltek Acumen does provide a way to list all risk events associated with an activity. Let’s take a look at this.
In Deltek Acumen, schedulers can define risk events in a schedule and/or cost risk register. By highlighting an individual activity, a scheduler can see all the risk events in the risk register that are toggled on for that activity.
Well, that works well for small schedules. But this reader was working on schedules that have thousands of activities. For these large projects, scanning the risk register for an activity’s risk event mapping, i.e. risk events to activity mapping, may quickly become cumbersome. It also becomes a laborious process for projects that have large risk registers with numerous risk events. Fortunately, Deltek Acumen provides some tabulation to support inspecting an activity’s risk events.
This article provides a quick tip for viewing a tabulated list of risk events for a selected activity.
In Figure 1 we have a Primavera P6 schedule imported to Deltek Acumen. This is a Pipe Branch Installation project.
Figure 1
If you look at the activity table, you will find that we currently have highlighted activity PIPE1050 Backhoe Excavation. The risk register for the entire schedule is displayed on the right. Because we have selected Backhoe Excavation only those risk events mapped to the Backhoe Excavation project will have check marks next to them in the Mapped column.
Again, for small projects checking the risk register’s full list for this activity’s risk events presents no major effort. But for large projects this may require careful inspection. What we want is a quick way to view a tabulated list of only those risk events associated with a particular activity. Fortunately, Deltek Acumen provides a Risk Events tab in the bottom details view that performs this function.
In our demonstration project we proceed and select the Risk Events tab in the bottom details, Figure 2.
Figure 2
And we find the below risk events associated with our Backhoe Excavation activity:
- Eagle Nesting Season
- Adverse Precipitation Weather
- Boulder in Trench
Now to expand the columns in the tabulated Risk Events tab we choose None from the Right Panel drop down menu, Figure 3.
Figure 3
Expanding the Risk Events list, Figure 4, we can now view each risk event’s probabilities, impacts, mitigation duration & cost, and resulting mitigated probabilities and impacts.
Figure 4
The risk events tab is also available in the bottom details of cost estimates.
Summary
Risk events are defined in Deltek Acumen’s risk register. The risk register provides sufficient functionality for the definition and mapping of risk events. However, the risk register may not be the most efficient place to inspect an activity’s risk events. Yes, larger projects require a more direct way of inspecting a corresponding activity’s risk events.
Deltek Acumen supports the tabulation of an individual activity’s risk events in the bottom details Risk Events tab. This seems like a minor point. But for large projects it becomes a major issue. And my students confirmed that the Risk Events tab provides the critical functionality they earnestly sought.