Case Study: Project PMO achieves shorter, more accurate missile development schedules with Palisade’s @RISK

Missile Milestones undergo Monte Carlo Simulation Making for a More Accurate Schedule

Project PMO, a consulting firm led by Jim Aksel, was engaged to help a major aerospace contractor meet the US Navy’s demand for a more quantitative and defensible schedule risk analysis. The client’s schedule lacked a credible critical path and Monte Carlo capability, leaving contingency margins as informal “guesstimates,” so Project PMO adopted Palisade’s @RISK (integrated with Microsoft Project) to provide rigorous, probabilistic modeling.

Using Palisade’s @RISK, Project PMO cleaned up the schedule logic, elicited three‑point duration estimates, and ran Monte Carlo simulations to produce probabilistic milestone dates. The analysis reduced typical task margins from 22 days to about 10–14 days, shortened some milestone estimates by 6–8 weeks, and delivered transparent, reproducible outputs that improved schedule credibility, stakeholder buy‑in, and basis for performance incentives.

Project PMO

Jim Aksel

Project PMO