In the current issue of Physics Today, is an article on the ITER Fusion project in France.
Since November, ITER partners have worked to find ways to speed up construction ... involving building more parts in parallel ... which brings on risk. The IO needs to quantify the risks in terms of time, success, and resources ...
The current working arrangement includes risk mitigation measures and a feasible schedule with acceptable risks and costs.
There are 11,000 activities to synchronize among the bodies in charge of procurement. That includes every hand off point between us (ITER) and domestic agencies.
This project is construction, but like the LHC, is also a major software project.
So we we hear project participants speak to each other on enterprise IT or other non-trivial software projects, do we hear words like this?
- We have the items on the critical path properly buffered.
- We know what the next set of deliverables are, what maturity they are expected to be, how to measure that maturity, and how that maturity moves the entire project forward at the planned rate of progress - measured as physical percent complete.
- Our cost models include an acceptable level of risk, mitigated by reserves, with assigned cost estimating relationships (CER) so when something goes wrong - as it always does - we can "connect the dots" for the cost impact.
- The knowledge of physical measures of progress are defined in our planning documents in ways meaningful to both development and management, so when we have to think about Plan B, the connections between cost, schedule, and technical perforation are already there.
