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Project Planning & Evaluation Tool (PPET)

IMC's Project Planning & Evaluation Tool (PPET) is an intuitive, point-and-click application that provides powerful visual insights and reports to help agencies understand and reduce project risk related to time, cost, and resources.

PPET logoUncertainty creates risk. PPET uses uncertainty to quantify risk so you can understand where it comes from in a project or process. Understanding risk and its sources allows you to save money and time by proactively reducing risks and making better decisions throughout a project or processes. The added benefit of this is being able to better manage the expectations of stakeholders.

Organizations need to change their mindsets and ask, "What level of risk is okay?" and not just, "When will the project be completed?" Most project managers are responsible for answering the second question for their key stakeholders. However, that historical mindset needs to change because it often relies on the project manager giving a point estimate, such as "about five months", and when the point estimate slips or costs increase, both parties get frustrated.

What is certain about a point estimate is that it will be wrong. The piece of data project managers and decision makers need to know is how far off their point estimate can be. By capturing uncertainty in their project planning, project managers can ask decision makers and stakeholders, "What level of risk is okay?" and let that drive project estimates or decisions.

Choosing a project's acceptable risk level or proactively reducing risk allows companies to plan and execute better, which results in successful projects in terms of time, money, and morale. PPET is the tool to change your company's mindset.

PPET helps project managers:

  • Focus on managing risk and not on a complex application. PPET is a quick, accurate tool for modeling a process or project that allows users to understand risk associated with time, costs, and resources. Once you understand risk you can make better decisions, improve forecasting, and save time and money.

  • Battle scope creep with data. Instead of being forced to accept scope creep and still hit existing timelines and budgets, quickly, run "what if" scenarios incorporating the new scope. Then present decision makers with the schedule, cost, and risk impacts of the change.

  • Increase transparency and accountability. PPET tracks any change made by users so you can audit your team's assumptions in the work breakdown structure, which drives accountability into team decisions.

  • Manage expectations. You no longer have to rely on a point estimate to estimate when a project will be completed and then have that number held against you when a project misses the completion date. For example, instead of saying that, "the project will be completed in six months and for $100,000," PPET can help you determine that, "the project will be completed in six months and for $100,000 with a 70% probability," and you can determine within your team if that 30% chance of missing these numbers is an acceptable risk.

PPET helps stakeholders and decision makers stop relying on inaccurate point estimates. PPET can provide statistical distribution graphs related to time, costs, and resources where you can set the risk level you're willing to accept and let that drive the time, cost, and resource estimates. You can manage expectations more easily and justify your decisions.

PPET offers stakeholders and decision makers the ability to quickly understand your alternatives and allows you to request more data using "what if" scenarios to make sure you explore all options to justify your decisions.

To find out more about PPET and to see what it can do for your organization, contact Greg Adams, director of software development.

How is PPET different from other risk management software?

In a word, SIMPLICITY!

Easily represent your process or project in the point-and-click Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Capture tool. Once your WBS is complete you can instantly run the simulator and your results are presented visually in graphs and charts. You can view a single simulation's results or compare multiple runs side-by-side.