Are you confident of the risks you face in your project planning?

• Do your projects overrun their cost estimates?
  
• Can your spreadsheet models address the effects of changing requirements, schedules, and personnel?
  
• Can you confidently pinpoint the variables or resources that will most effect the critical path of your project development?
  
• Can you generate the charts you need to prove to management how the inherent risks will affect a project's completion?

Today, Crystal Ball is the tool chosen by more than 85% of the Fortune 500. Companies such as Sprint, Pillsbury, GE, and Boeing rely on Crystal Ball to manage risk and make more informed business and strategic decisions.

Crystal Ball is a Microsoft® Excel®-based suite of analytical tools that includes Monte Carlo simulation, optimization, and forecasting. With little effort, you can apply these advanced analytical techniques to your new or existing spreadsheets to create more accurate cost and financial predictions and better informed business decisions.

This is a time of positive change for project management: low-cost software and improved computing power can help you to better model projects and calculate the related risks. Crystal Ball can help you better assess your alternatives, increase the confidence you have in planning details, and make more informed decisions despite the uncertainties or lack of data.

Crystal Ball is for anyone who uses spreadsheets and needs to forecast uncertain results. Financial analysts, project managers, product managers, and engineers all rely on Crystal Ball to improve the quality of their decision making processes. Common applications include forecasting and risk assessment of project schedules, strategic project evaluations, forecasting market demand, and choosing best planned activity start times so as to minimize overall project cost.

Crystal Ball is designed for both the statistician and the non-statistician. The award-winning documentation makes it easy to use, letting you complete your analysis sooner with less effort. The forecast, overlay, and trend charts and generated reports help you to clearly present your results to colleagues, managers, and clients.

Key features of interest to project managers, in addition to Monte Carlo simulation, include sensitivity analysis and the Tornado Chart tool, two functions that let you understand which model variables have the greatest effect on the success of your project. OptQuest, the Crystal Ball add-in for optimization, is ideal for managers who wish to select the best possible combination of new projects, who need to maximize overall project costs, and who need to determine the optimal levels of staffing.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CRYSTAL BALL FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT

This page offers links to a growing number of resources, including recorded Web seminars, articles, white papers, case studies, and example models. Additionally, you can view a list of common uses and examples reported directly from customers using Crystal Ball. You can also download a free trial version of Crystal Ball to see how it can help improve your business forecasts and decisions!

RECORDED WEB SEMINARS

Project Risk Assessment Using Crystal Ball Learn how you can answer questions such as when a project will be complete, how much will it cost, and which resources are affecting the critical path. Presented by Hameed Nezhad, Professor of Decision Sciences at Metropolitan State University Recorded October 31, 2006	View recording Download files
Improve Business Value from Time and Cost Estimates: How BP uses Monte Carlo Analysis as a Risk Management Tool Learn how a major oil and gas company has made Monte Carlo analysis a core skill of the thousand-strong well engineering staff at the world's largest privately-owned oil and gas operator. Presented by Hugh Williamson, BP's global specialist on well cost estimation and risk management Recorded May 24, 2006	View recording Download files
Choose Wisely: Apply Project Selection and Optimization Models to Product Development and R&D Portfolios Learn how Project Selection and Optimization Models reveal the real-time risk adjusted value of the project pipeline and provide the clear and accurate data that is necessary to make highly informed decisions. Presented by Tom Hambleton, an independent Technology and Innovation Strategy consultant Recorded April 4, 2006	View recording Download files
Making Your Critical Path Smarter - Schedule Risk Analysis with Crystal Ball Understand schedule risk analysis, the differences between traditional critical paths and a risk analyzed critical path and the benefits, including: on time project delivery, accurate assessment of scope changes, ease in presenting information. Presented by Lorrie Tietze, Founder and Manager, Interface Consulting, LLC Recorded September 11, 2007	View recording Download files

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WHITE PAPERS & ARTICLES

Basic Techniques for Analyzing and Presentation of Cost Risk Analysis By Randy Lorance & Robert Wendling	Download
Exploiting the Best of Critical Chain and Monte Carlo Simulation By John Schuyler	Download
Integrated Cost / Schedule Risk Analysis By David Hulett (PowerPoint presentation)	Download
Integrated Cost and Schedule Project Risk Analysis By David T. Hulett, Ph.D., Hulett & Associates, LLC	Download
Introducción a la estimación de costos referidos a daños ocasionados por desastres naturales y costos de obras de mitigación por medios del uso de técnicas de simulación By Edgardo Alberto Masciarelli, Pablo Arranz, and Marcelo Esteban Zeballos (This is a Spanish-language paper: Introduction to the estimation of costs referred to damages caused by natural disasters and work costs of mitigation by means of the use of techniques of simulation)	Download
Modeling Uncertainty in Project Scheduling By Patrick Leach, Partner, Decision Strategies	Download
Optimizing Project Plan Decisions By John Schuyler	Download
Project Cost Risk Analysis Using Crystal Ball By David Hulett	Download
Simulation software: A powerful way to improve organizational decision making By J. Herlihy	Download
Software Project Management Meets Six Sigma By David L. Hallowell, Six Sigma Advantage, Inc. (Six Sigma Partner)	Download
Stochastic Critical Path Eduardo Herrera, CEO, CIDEM	Download
Why Spreadsheets Should Be in OR/MS Practitioners' Tool Kits (from ORMS Today, April 1999)	Download

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CASE STUDIES

Boeing Analyzing Engineering Projects Using Real Options -- Intelligent Investments in the Face of Uncertainty	Download
Hewlett-Packard Crystal Ball Allows Hewlett-Packard to Bring Printers to Market On-Time	Download
3M Use of Crystal Ball Improves unit Cost Estimates	Download
TRW Use of Crystal Ball Pro Provides TRW with Increased Flexibility and Efficiency	Download

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EXAMPLE MODELS

Budget-constrained Project Selection Detail: The problem is to determine which projects to select to maximize the total expected profit while staying within the budget limitation. Complicating this decision is the fact that both the expected revenue and success rates are highly uncertain. Includes optimizations setting file. Uses binary decision variables for Yes/No decisions and uses the certainty statistic for optimizing the values observed between two endpoints.	Download For: Crystal Ball & OptQuest Level: Simple
Cost Estimation Model Detail: This model is a simplified cost estimating tool for a project manager to understand the cost risks for a project.	Download For: Crystal Ball Level: Simple
Critical Path / Time to Market Analysis Detail: This model can be used to analyze a project schedule or the time it would take to get a product to market. The goal of this model is to understand the uncertainty of when the project will finish and how often a step will fall on the critical path.	Download For: Crystal Ball Level: Simple

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COMMON USES & EXAMPLES

The following examples were provided by our customers and represent only some of the potential project management applications for Crystal Ball.

• Analysis of contingency provisions for construction project capital estimates
• Choosing best planned activity start times so as to minimize overall project cost
• Curso evaluación de proyectos
• Decision making - strategic project evaluations
• Determining the probability of achieving a favorable outcome in the area of new technology acquisition
• Educational program evaluation, achievement data analysis
• Estimating the lifecycle costs and benefits of a new automation system
• Forecasting and risk assessment of project schedules
• Forecasting market demand
• Helping to measure and plan production capacity
• Human Resource Planning
• Projecting unit cost figures for products early in the development stage
• Risk analysis and project appraisal
• Support decision process for project management and DFSS applications

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TEXTBOOKS

Risk and Decision Analysis in Projects, 2/e

Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 5/e

Project Management in Practice

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