Scheduled FMEA is a risk assessment technique originally developed by Renault that systematically evaluates risks to a project schedule. It considers a schedule as a system of tasks and dependencies that must be reliable and maintainable. It transfers the discipline of failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) from technical risks to schedule risks. The benefits include systematically identifying risks, promoting robust schedule impact analysis of risks, and facilitating stakeholder involvement. It can be implemented by having contributors evaluate tasks and dependencies using an FMEA-like register to record uncertainties. Overall ratings are then calculated to compare elements and inform risk response planning.

1. Project risk management:
why not favour schedule based assessment?
What is Scheduled FMEA?
• Originally introduced by Renault under the French name of AMDEC Planning (Bensoussan,
early 90s), its purpose is to gather technical and non technical project team members around
the same decision model. Time to market was already very critical in the automotive industry.
If it is important to your project as well (penalties, missed sales, etc.) think of it!
• It considers that a schedule is a system1 made of tasks and dependencies. As such it must be
reliable (e.g. close to existing benchmarked experience) and maintainable (e.g. resilience to
re-baselining) in all the three dimensions:
o Inherent or embedded: is the element ‘self supporting’?
o Logistic: is the way the element has been designed/defined based on real experience
and objective enough to be considered as ‘safe’?
o Propagation: in case of failure of the element, how far or quick other key points of the
schedule will be affected?
• It transfers the discipline of FME(C)A, a very popular technique in the car industry for
addressing technical risks, to the body of knowledge of project management.
What are the benefits of Scheduled FMEA?
• Uses the clear structure of the project network to systematically identify risk
• Helps asking unpleasant questions up-front:
o Politically correct task durations
o Irrelevant decomposition of W/P into tasks or activities
o Disagreement or ignorance of inputs-ouputs chains2
o Skills of selected operators
• Promotes a more robust way to consolidate schedule impact of risks and opportunities
• Facilitates the involvement of all stakeholders as each participant thinks first of his part of the
job, before questioning the quality or in-time delivery of inputs
• Assessment sessions can be arranged according to the usual clusters of the organisation:
resource-based, time-frame based, expertise-based, etc.
• No duplication of effort with the project risk register
• An interesting preliminary step that speeds up Monte Carlo simulation
Issues:
• Like FMEA, could be time consuming as it is based on a systematic questioning of tasks,
links, competence of resources
• Avoid paralysis by analysis: rely on assessment of operations
• Do not create unnecessary conflict with operations: the project schedule does not reinvent or
describe everything they do!
• Many topics are generic to the usual architecture of projects in your organisation. Replace
thorough analysis by a sanity check wherever possible!
• Once the discipline is understood, it is easily supported by spreadsheets…and still robust
How to implement it:
• Contributors individually think about their portion of the project work (in between major
milestones they are responsible for)
1
2 basic characteristics: the whole is more than the sum of its parts; an assembly of elements with a
purpose
2
Remember RACI or LCR matrix that deal with this topic as well
© Marc Desrumaux www.d-rix.fr 5 mars 2010

2. • With reference to the coding system of tasks and dependencies, they use a FMEA-like
register to record uncertainties
• The project risk management plan defines the weighting system to use for reliability and
maintainability on one hand3, for inherent, logistic and propagation on the other hand
• Each dimension is rated by the contributor on a 1 to 4 scale. Numbers are then multiplied or
added and a path or milestone rating can be computed.
• You can easily compare the rating of important elements with the float at design
protective/preventive actions
Reliability Maintainability
Inherent Logistic Propagation Inherent Logistic Propagation
Is content Any functional Validation of Are tasks Extra resources Effectiveness of
known or analysis report inputs? modular or available? fall back
understood? to qualify tailored? solutions
Tasks requirement?
Are all What about RAM and Is content Work Flexibility of QCT
necessary work loads? competencies negotiated? authorisation objectives?
tasks for W/P of Agreed? System
included? stakeholders?
Are task Availability of Process to Can content be
owners resources? detect/ re-negotiated?
capable? anticipate
changes?
Did we do it Candidness of Is early start of flexibility level Triggering Re-baselining
that way information? tasks possible? of content counter actions procedures
before? to warnings
Dependencies buffer or Process flows Early warnings? schedule Variance Buffer
padding known/ mature? Dash boards? elasticity analysis consumption?
included? procedures
Contracts Communication Contingency Fall back Exception Flexibility of
inputs-outputs, channels: reserves positions (crisis) partnerships
incl’d? effective, clear? procedures
Work around or Reserve & buffer
contingency Management
plans?
3
For example reliability factor is 2 ; maintainability is 1 ; inherent 3, logistic 2, propagation 1. It would
mean that the project team favours more a robust schedule than a flexible one and that reference to
past experience is more important than resilience to failure of an element. Assume a given task gets
the respective scores of TRI=2; TRL=4; TRP=1; TMI=4; TML=1:TMP=2.The overall rating of the task will be
(2x3 + 4x2+ 1x1)x2 + (4x3 + 1x2 + 2x1)x1= 46. Rating of paths incorporate rating of dependencies.
© Marc Desrumaux www.d-rix.fr 5 mars 2010

3. © Marc Desrumaux www.d-rix.fr 5 mars 2010