Brief Description of Event Chain Methodology

Group Assignment # 1

Project Management Methodology

Event Chain Methodology

Michelle Tong

7152507

Renato Pontalti Azize

7121056

Advanced Project Planning and Control

MGMT 8400

Instructor David Knight

September 14, 2015

Table of Contents

Brief Description of Event Chain Methodology        3

Structure of Event Chain Methodology        3

Project Life Cycle        4

The Role of Project Manager in Event Chain Methodology        4

Event Chain Methodology Strengths and Weaknesses        5

Brief Description of Event Chain Methodology

Event Chain Methodology (ECM) is an uncertainty modeling and schedule network analysis technique, which focuses on the identification and management of events and event chains that might affect project schedule (Bizhop Investment Corporation, 2014, para. 24).  Since ECM tackles the challenge of modeling and visualizing task risks and their relationships in any project, ECM is suitable for various projects of any time-related businesses or technological processes (Virine, 2006, para. 1). These projects have tasks that initiate chains of events, in which after one event is completed, another event will be created. Thus, these events must be managed carefully to complete the project without affecting the project schedule significantly. ECM is an appropriate method for projects that are not linear and cannot use traditional method (Hom, 2013, para. 10).

Structure of Event Chain Methodology

According to Virine and Trumper (n.d.), ECM is based on six principles:

• Moments of event and excitation dates: A task in real-life processes is not continuously uniformed. They are affected by external events, which can happen in the middle of the task.
• Event chains: One event can cause other events to take place, which creates event chains. Quantitative analysis is used to measure cumulative effect on the project schedule.
• Critical events or event chains: Single events or event chains that could possibly cause the most effect to the project are called critical events or event chains. It is helpful to identify them to mitigate their negative effects.
• Event chain visualization: Complex relationships between events can be visualized using event diagram presented by Gantt chart.
• Monte Carlo analysis^[1]: is used to quantify the cumulative impact of the events, in which probability and impacts are used as input data for the analysis.
• Performance measurements of events and event chains: The information about project costs, durations, and events are available to be recalculated to forecast future project performance in terms of updated costs and durations, to generate new project schedule.

Project Life Cycle

Since risks and uncertainties can occur in any phase of the project life cycle, ECM is used to analyze and schedule the project by focusing on identifying and managing the events themselves to avoid affecting project outcomes. Thus, ECM is mostly used during project planning. However, during project execution, uncertain events can occur, which requires ECM to be performed to reassess and forecast new project schedule.