How Does Risk Perform a Cost/Duration Allocation?

Acumen Risk performs the cost/duration allocation by spreading it proportionally on the assigned activities, depending on their remaining duration.

For example:

WBS W contains three activities:
  • Activity A, with a remaining duration of 5 days.
  • Activity B, with a remaining duration of 10 days.
  • Activity C, with a remaining duration of 35 days.

The total remaining duration is 50 days. Activity A represents 10% of the total, Activity B represents 20% of the total, and Activity C represents 70% of the total.

Risk Event R has a schedule impact of 100 days and is assigned to WBS W. The allocation of the 100 days of schedule impact is completed using the total remaining duration percentages (calculated above):
  • 10% (10 days) of the impact is assigned to Activity A because it represents 10% of the total remaining duration.
  • 20% (20 days) of the impact is assigned to Activity B because it represents 20% of the total remaining duration.
  • 70% (70 days) of the impact is assigned to Activity C because it represents 70% of the total remaining duration.

The values that display in Acumen and in Excel exports are rounded to the nearest integer. For example, if an allocation results in 0.1 days of impact, it displays as 0 days in Acumen and in an Excel export. Risk Analysis does not use the rounded values; it stores the values in minutes and runs its calculations based on those values.

Accuracy in the displayed data increases if you set Acumen to work in hours; however, this does not affect the risk analysis calculations.

Note: If you export the data to Excel, the values are rounded to the nearest integer. If you re-import the data and run a risk analysis, Acumen uses the new rounded values.