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Fernando Patiño, delivery consultant at risk software and consultancy company Risk Decisions, joins Liam Garman to discuss Predict! Risk Analyser, a key component of the company’s software suite. Predict! Risk Analyser is a must have for defence companies seeking to identify and manage project risk — from bidding through to successful completion — to ensure that projects are delivered on time and on budget.
Liam Garman: Thank you for your time today, Fernando! For those unfamiliar with Risk Decisions, would you be able to provide some background on the company, and how you help defence businesses reach their full potential?
Fernando Patiño: It’s a pleasure, Liam! Simply put, Risk Decisions supports customers to deliver their desired project outcomes on time and on budget.
Risk Decisions is a global risk management company operating within the defence ecosystem and broader industry sectors. Underpinned by our comprehensive Predict! Software suite, we help organisations track and manage their project risk and deliver essential capability within the timeframe and cost set at project planning stages.
I have been with the company for 2 years and am head of the Customer Delivery Team for APAC, supporting our customers on project risk.
One element of the Predict! software suite is Predict! Risk Analyser which our customers use to track, monitor and analyse their risks using a statistical procedure called Monte Carlo analysis. This analysis takes the impact that potential risks may have on a project — whether financial or schedule — and produces a range of potential outcomes from the worst-case scenario to the likely and optimistic scenarios. The software gives you insights into the financial and scheduling impact of uncertainty on your business, and the most important risks to mitigate to achieve success.
One important point, is you don’t need to understand statistics to use the software effectively. We work with users to ensure they understand how Predict! Risk Analyser works, so they can engage with the results and use them in their forward projections and business planning. The software thus provides insight and feedback on the robustness of the project plan, likely constraints, missed opportunities and other useful project analysis.
It's simple, you just click a button — and after a few minutes, you have a bespoke risk report!
Helping companies overcome risk really is in our DNA. Risk Decisions is led by Val Jonas, our Chief Executive Officer, who has helped many major global companies improve their risk management, in addition to being involved in the creation of Global Risk Standards throughout her extensive career.
Get 50% off 1 days training for up to 6 people when you purchase a Predict! Risk Analyser license
Liam: So why is it so important for businesses to accurately assess risk?
Fernando: Having a good understanding of risk throughout your project underpins project success, avoiding overruns and budget blow-outs. Defence programs are financed by the public. Money has to be spent the right way and used wisely.
In defence, technology risks are huge and most projects are lengthy and complex. You don’t just build one aircraft, you built 20 or 30. If you don’t identify and deal with the risks at an early stage - in procurement, design, prototyping, supply chain etc - for the first aircraft, your project won’t just be a few months over schedule — but years. Solving the problems later in the project typically adds huge additional costs and often requires unplanned support to keep obsolete equipment operational. This undermines the original business case and requires you to divert funds from elsewhere to meet unplanned costs.
Predict! Risk Analyser helps businesses within the defence industry —as well as in infrastructure, government and utilities – to identify the big risks and correctly allocate resources ahead of time to ameliorate these risks, saving time and money.
Liam: Could you provide us with some case studies where the Risk Decisions Predict! Risk Analyser has helped large companies manage large-scale projects?
Fernando: Of course, the software has been employed to help deliver numerous large-scale projects across the world.
Predict! Risk Analyser is used typically by prime contractors bidding and delivering major new contracts, but also for costing ongoing equipment support, to ensure the government is getting the best value for money. One example of this is a major exercise carried out in the UK by the Tornado aircraft project team to provide the government with best value aircraft maintenance and maximum availability, while reducing overall costs.
Another good example of schedule risk analysis is the delivery of the Athlete’s Village for the London Olympics, where Australian company Lendlease’s challenge was to deliver in a tight timeframe. The London Olympics had to start on time — ready or not —you don’t have the luxury to ask for an extension! By demanding the use of an unprecedented 100 per cent schedule confidence KPI target using Predict! Risk Analyser, Lendlease delivered the Athlete’s village 2 months ahead of their schedule target and 5 months ahead of the opening of the games.
We are currently supporting the construction of the Femern two-way road/rail Tunnel — one of the world’s largest infrastructure projects - linking Denmark and Germany, providing extensive benefits to both countries. Our clients used Predict! from the early planning stages to decide whether to build a bridge or tunnel. Risk Decisions are proud to be supporting the ongoing delivery of such a mega project!
Liam: Predict! Risk Analyser doesn’t just support the delivery of the project, but also the tender bid. How can businesses use the tool to improve their business development pipelines?
Fernando: Absolutely, the software is fundamental to managing all phases of a project — right from the bid development, through to implementation and end delivery.
When you’re compiling a bid for a project, you need to know how much a project is going to cost and how long it is going to take. Predict! Risk Analyser gives a business the ability to forecast realistic timeframes for the bid client by analysing schedule risk down to individual task level. From the bid phase, businesses can project the likelihood of tasks being completed ahead of time, or the impact of a delay. Therefore, you can demonstrate a spectrum of potential completion dates and key areas of uncertainty, making a more informed and evidence-based bid, as opposed to making decisions from gut feeling. Providing such evidence-based confidence in your bid pricing, can set you apart from your competitors, building a relationship of trust with the client.
Once a project is underway, you can use remaining duration data to predict ongoing forecast of milestones dates and overall project completion. With confidence that you are managing your risks proactively, businesses can be confident of releasing budget to new projects, while also improving the chance of winning more business with their satisfied customer.
Businesses can explore “what if scenarios” to ensure that all conceivable contingencies are accounted for. When planning a project, the software allows a user to trial different scenarios based on alternative data without changing the original data set. This not only allows users to question and trial different scenarios, but it also strengthens the bid process by demonstrating the outcome of risk reduction or risk growth strategies from the get-go.
Liam: How easy is it to use Predict! Risk Analyser for schedule risks analysis?
Fernando: It couldn’t be easier. Simply upload your schedule to the software. It then works its magic by allocating risks to tasks before projecting a spectrum of delivery times and costs.
It’s that simple.
The software has built-in integration with Primavera P6, Deltek OpenPlan and Microsoft Project, where you upload an exported file to the Predict! tool. Predict! Risk Analyser only has access to risk data that the user has permission to see. This gives our clients in the defence industry confidence that the data which needs to remain confidential, does.
The software also has excellent cost risk analysis capability, either through its integration with Predict! Risk Controller, or as a modelling tool to generate your own advanced analysis.
Get 50% off 1 days training for up to 6 people when you purchase a Predict! Risk Analyser license
Liam: I believe that Risk Decisions is also offering a special at the moment for new customers? And how does the Risk Decisions licencing work?
Fernando: We are, with every new risk analyser licence purchase, we’re offering a day’s training at half price. The offer is open until the end of 2022.
We take pride in being more than just a software company - we are risk experts — so it is our mission to help businesses get the best out of using Predict!. Our expert training helps customers to understand how to use the tool and address their business’ unique risk requirements.
Our licence model is also unique, enabling customers in Australia to share licences with their colleagues in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States through our concurrent user licensing model. As more and more projects have worldwide components, risk needs to be collaborative across a company’s global footprint as risk doesn’t just stop within the Australian office.
Liam: Thank you so much for your time today, Fernando, it’s greatly appreciated!
Fernando: Thank you Liam!
Find out more about Risk Decisions’ special offer on Predict! Risk Analyser training here.
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