We tend to seek easy, single-factor explanations of success. For most important things, however, success requires avoiding the many separate causes of failure – Jared Diamond
In order to avoid the causes of failure, we need to look into the future at the uncertainties that create risk, which when unmitigated, become sources of failure. The processes that deal with uncertainties, resulting risks is Risk Management.
In the presence of uncertainty (reducible or irreducible), to make decisions, we need to make estimates. These estimates of risk and its impact on the future can be informed by past performance (Reference Class Forecasting) or models of that future performance (Monte Carlo Simulation, Method of Moments, or Parametric modeling).
No matter your choice of a method for revealing to possible risks in the future,
There is NO principle of Managerial Finance, Probabilistic Decision-Making, or Microeconomics of project development by which a credible decision can be made in the presence of uncertainty without estimating the outcome of that decision and its impact on the scarce resources (time, cost, technical performance limits) that create that uncertainty.
To suggest otherwise willfully ignores these principles
