Program & Project Risks and Reporting with Oracle Primavera Cloud

As the name suggests, Oracle Primavera Cloud – formerly known as ‘Prime’ – is a fully cloud-based project and portfolio management service with integrated scope, cost and scheduling functions capable of long-range capital and resource planning. Using Cloud, the Risk module enables you to identify analyse and monitor risk at the Project and Program level.

Many companies have three separate departments working in three disparate tools even though they all feed into the same project, using the same kinds of data gathered from activities that affect one another. Planners and schedulers, focussed on time constraints, might be working in Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project; elsewhere the cost estimators – watching the pennies and pounds – are likely to be using Excel spreadsheets or specialist estimating tools to track and forecast costs; and somewhere else, the risk managers are using their own specialist tools, or maybe Excel too, but working in their own spreadsheets to assess and manage risks throughout the project. How can they be sure they are all working with the same data set? They can’t. How can the risk managers fully predict the impact on cost or schedule should a particular risk occur? It’s a best-guess scenario, based on calculated assumptions.

Oracle Primavera Cloud takes the guesswork out of the situation. With the capability to manage a full lifecycle of risk in a project – identifying, assessing, analysing and monitoring risks as they arise – Cloud’s risk register helps you to perform both qualitative and quantitative analysis at project level. Pre-built reports and analytics help you with much of the hard work, and a seamless bi-directional integration with P6 makes risk analysis a simpler task than ever before.

Gateway acts as a bridge to push schedule dates formulated in P6 through to Primavera Cloud, where you can view the schedule, apply uncertainty factors, assign a risk matrix, import risks and run Monte Carlo analysis to show risk-adjusted dates. Gateway then feeds these dates back to P6 and into the updated project plan.

Templates make it easy to configure a risk matrix with standardized risk scoring across the enterprise and defined thresholds and probability ranges. Clear colour coding shows at a glance where the project’s greatest risks lie – with each element categorised as low, medium or high risk. Holding the risk register in a central location gives immediate visibility to everyone concerned, aiding the identification, assessment, categorization and statusing of project risks and supporting the effective creation of response plans to determine the best course of action.

You can assess program risks – global factors such as currency devaluation or a threat of import embargo, for instance – and project risks, such as poor weather, price rises in materials, shortage of labour or industrial action, categorizing and assessing them separately.

Pre-built Histogram and Tornado Charts based on Monte Carlo analysis techniques can be used to create clear, visual reports for pre-response or post-response analysis, or both, giving quantitative visibility into the likelihood of meeting project or activity dates.

In addition to this, a variety of powerful BI risk reports and impact diagrams can be generated to suit your needs and analytical requirements.

Oracle Primavera Cloud could really transform the efficiency of your processes and the accuracy of your reporting and forecasting and – because it’s in the Cloud – can bring together teams that are geographically far apart or just working in isolation. That can only be a positive outcome, when it comes to the success of your programs and projects.

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Note: This content was originally shared by RPCuk Director, Peter Gable, at the 2019 Project Challenge Expo in his presentation: Program & Project Risks and Reporting with Oracle Primavera Cloud.