ABSTRACT
Project uncertainty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s an interpretation of what we do and do not think we know. It is based on interpretations and judgement, a product of social interaction, a continuous construction and reconstruction. A project is often understood in terms of its constituent elements using a work breakdown structure. The process of risk management is driven by a relatively simple principle – the likelihood of an event occurring and the probable impact should that event occur. The purpose of value-driven project management is to shift the focus from the detailed delivery of project activities to understanding what value means for a customer and end-user stakeholders and, in doing so, concentrating on what matters in the project. Over-optimistic forecasts of likely project performance, based on underestimating aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty in projects, coupled with an over-optimistic assessment of the project team’s ability to deal with uncertainty, are significant problems for project decision-making.
