Risk · Course
Quantitative Risk Analysis Practitioner
A complete, practitioner-level course in Quantitative Risk Analysis — from running the workshop that produces your inputs, through building a QSRA and QCRA in @Risk, to presenting results at board level. For people who need to own a QRA end to end, not just run the model.
Who it is for
Built for these people.
- Risk leads and risk managers moving from qualitative registers into quantified analysis
- Planners and cost engineers adding QRA to their toolkit
- PMO analysts who commission or review QRAs and need to challenge them credibly
- Consultants who want a defensible end-to-end QRA methodology
- Anyone preparing a funding submission that requires P50/P80 cost or schedule figures
Outcomes
What you will walk away with.
- Design and facilitate a risk workshop that produces calibrated three-point estimates, not consensus theatre
- Draw out quiet voices and manage dominant ones without derailing the session
- Select appropriate probability distributions for cost and duration inputs and justify the choice
- Build a working Quantitative Schedule Risk Analysis (QSRA) model in @Risk from a real schedule
- Build a working Quantitative Cost Risk Analysis (QCRA) model in @Risk from a cost estimate
- Apply correlation between risks correctly and explain why ignoring it underestimates overall variability
- Read and interpret S-curves, tornado charts, and sensitivity graphs accurately
- Extract and present P50, P80, and P95 figures with appropriate caveats
- Write a board-grade QRA report that is honest about the model’s limitations
Syllabus
Session by session.
Session 1 — Running a QRA Workshop
3 hours- Scoping a workshop proportionate to the project: agenda, attendee list, duration
- Pre-workshop preparation: briefing notes, seed risks, priming attendees to give useful input
- Calibration exercises that demonstrate overconfidence and adjust attendee estimates
- Eliciting credible three-point estimates: the questions to ask and the ones to avoid
- Drawing out quiet voices and handling dominant ones without creating conflict
- Documenting workshop outputs so they feed directly into a QRA model
Session 2 — Risk Fundamentals & @Risk
3 hours- What QRA is and isn’t: risk register vs sensitivity analysis vs Monte Carlo
- Probability distributions in plain English: uniform, triangular, PERT, lognormal — when to use each
- @Risk interface overview: adding distributions, running a simulation, reading outputs
- Correlation between risks: what it is, why it matters, how to set it
- Simulation mechanics: sample size, convergence, knowing when results are stable
- Common QRA inputs that are simply wrong — and how to spot them before you run the model
Session 3 — Building a QSRA
3 hours- QSRA model structure: linking schedule logic to @Risk inputs
- Handling activity durations and risk events as separate inputs
- Merge bias and why your deterministic schedule is almost certainly optimistic
- Running the simulation on a real (provided) schedule extract
- Reading QSRA outputs: completion date S-curve, critical path index, sensitivity tornado
- Hands-on: we build a QSRA together from a provided schedule
Session 4 — Building a QCRA
3 hours- QCRA model structure: uncertainty on base estimate lines vs discrete risk events
- Integrating schedule-driven cost risk: the relationship between QSRA and QCRA
- Cost line dependencies: why one ground-condition risk affects multiple packages
- Escalation and inflation uncertainty without double-counting
- Reading the cost S-curve: what P50, P80, and P95 actually commit you to
- Hands-on: we build a QCRA together from a provided cost estimate
Session 5 — Reading Outputs & Reporting
3 hours- S-curves in depth: what the shape tells you about confidence and risk concentration
- Tornado charts: identifying the risks that actually drive variability
- P50, P80, P95: what these figures mean, what they don’t mean, and how to explain them without misleading
- Structuring a board-grade QRA report: executive summary, methodology, assumptions, results, limitations
- Common QRA mistakes that get spotted in peer review — and how to avoid them
- When to update a QRA: triggers, re-baselining, and maintaining the model through delivery
Prerequisites
Before you join.
- Comfortable working in Microsoft Excel (pivot tables, formula writing, basic charting)
- Familiarity with risk management concepts: risk registers, probability, impact — at least at a basic level
- A copy of @Risk for Excel (Palisade / Lumivero) — a 15-day trial licence is available free; we’ll send download instructions before Session 1
- No prior QRA or facilitation experience required — we build from first principles
What you get
Included with every seat.
- Access to all five live sessions with a practitioner instructor
- Recordings of every session, available for 12 months
- The QSRA and QCRA model files built during the course, fully annotated
- A QRA workshop planning template — agenda, attendee brief, output documentation
- A calibration exercise pack you can run with your own team
- A QRA report template formatted for board-level presentation
- A SOMA certificate of completion for your CPD record
- Access to a post-course Q&A thread for follow-up questions from your own analyses
FAQs
The honest answers.
Do I need a paid @Risk licence?
Not to complete the course. Lumivero (formerly Palisade) offers a 15-day fully-functional trial of @Risk, and we send the download link before Session 1. If you want to continue using @Risk after the trial, a commercial licence is available — or the techniques transfer to other Monte Carlo tools like ModelRisk, Crystal Ball, Primavera Risk Analysis, or Safran Risk.
I only want the workshop facilitation part. Can I skip the modelling?
The one-day standalone workshop course is no longer run as open enrolment. We do offer in-house delivery of just the workshop facilitation content for teams of six or more — contact us for a quote. For individuals, the full five-session course is where the workshop material is now taught.
Is this enough to make me a QRA expert?
It gives you the foundations to build, facilitate, and interpret a credible QRA on a real project, and to know when something looks wrong. Building genuine expertise requires running several analyses on live programmes with your work reviewed. This course removes the steep initial learning curve and the expensive mistakes that come with it.
What if I miss a session?
Recordings are available within 24 hours. The course builds progressively — later sessions assume you’ve followed the earlier ones — so we’d encourage watching any missed session before the next one. You can also roll your place to a future cohort if circumstances change.
Can I expense this?
Almost certainly. At £1,395 it sits within standard professional development budgets for risk, planning, and cost professionals, and it’s clearly CPD-qualifying. We provide a VAT invoice. Some delegates pay personally and reclaim via self-assessment.
Do you cover Primavera Risk Analysis (Pertmaster) or Safran Risk?
This course uses @Risk for Excel. The underlying Monte Carlo concepts are the same across all tools. We cover the conceptual model thoroughly enough that transferring the approach to Primavera Risk Analysis or Safran is straightforward — the main difference is where you click, not what you’re doing.
Do you run in-house sessions?
Yes. In-house delivery works well for risk teams who want a shared methodology. We can tailor the workshop scenarios and model inputs to your sector or a real project, which significantly accelerates uptake. Contact us for a quote.
Want to talk about training your team?
Tell us the shape of your programme and your team's level. We will come back with a recommendation that fits — open course, in-house, or a mix.