Finish-date forecasts, tornado charts and the risk register

Finish date forecast (P50 / P80)

The forecast runs your schedule thousands of times with each task taking somewhere between its best and worst case. P50 is the date half the runs finish by; P80 is what you can safely promise. Add optimistic and pessimistic days to key tasks for a sharper forecast.

Tornado chart: what drives the finish

Reports → What drives the finish re-runs the schedule with each task at its best case (green, left) and worst case (orange, right). The longest bars are where tighter estimates, an extra crew or an early sub confirmation pay off most. “Critical in % of runs” comes from the forecast: how often that task sat on the critical path.

Risk register

1. Open a project → Risks.
2. Add a risk: what could happen, the category, probability and impact (1–5 each).
3. Pick an owner and write the mitigation (what you're doing now) and contingency (what you'll do if it happens).
4. Link the tasks and budget lines it would hit, plus the cost and days at stake.
5. Review open risks weekly. The heat map shows where they cluster; red cells (score 15+) need a plan this week.

Exposure

Expected cost and days weight each risk's impact by its probability, so a $10,000 risk that's “unlikely” (2 of 5) counts as $4,000 of exposure. Use it for contingency in your budget.