FORECASTING PROJECT PROGRESS AND EARLY WARNING OF PROJECT OVERRUNS WITH PROBABILISTIC METHODS A Dissertation by BYUNG

Forecasting Project Progress and Early Warning of Project Overruns with Probabilistic Methods. (December 2007) Byung Cheol Kim, B.S., Seoul National University; M.S., Seoul National University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Kenneth F. Reinschmidt Forecasting is a critical component of project management. Project managers must be able to make reliable predictions about the final duration and cost of projects starting from project inception. Such predictions need to be revised and compared with the project’s objectives to obtain early warnings against potential problems. Therefore, the effectiveness of project controls relies on the capability of project managers to make reliable forecasts in a timely manner. This dissertation focuses on forecasting project schedule progress with probabilistic methods. Currently available methods, for example, the critical path method (CPM) and earned value management (EVM) are deterministic and fail to account for the inherent uncertainty in forecasting and project performance. The objective of this dissertation is to improve the predictive capabilities of project managers by developing probabilistic forecasting methods that integrate all relevant information and uncertainties into consistent forecasts in a mathematically sound procedure usable in practice. In this dissertation, two probabilistic methods, the