RiskAoA

RiskAoA was developed by Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to quantitatively distinguish complicated or high value projects from their technical approaches or competitive proposals. RiskAoA minimizes risk by selecting the best possible alternative based on the evaluators' desired trade-space for costs, project schedule, other desired characteristics - and risk. It was designed to perform risk analysis in accordance with the exacting Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) standard. RiskAoA is proprietary to the United States Government, but is available from Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) Headquarters, the office of AFMC/A5, in accordance with Distribution B.  The commercially available version; Supervene, remains DoD compliant and features enhanced networking and trade-off analysis.

RiskAoA is one of the three modern approaches for managing risk. The first, CAP-M uses market statistics and assumptions to calculate investment risk and expected return on investment for a stocks and securities. The probabilistic risk assessment which assigns a magnitude to individual risks in cost, schedule, performance and safety. Finally, the RiskAoA approach uses a constrained model and sufficient qualitative information to creaed a quantitative result within its forecasting tool (confidence interval).

It is simple to use requiring only knowledge of proposed alternatives, decision criteria and an evaluation of High, Medium, Low, Negligible or no impact, within 50% accuracy. These semi-quantitative and even emotive results are intrinsically adjusted to the risk culture of the evaluator(s), transforming qualitative statements of an alternative or option risk into a single quantitative value like the costs and times associated with each alternative. Just as the cost of one proposal can be higher than another, or one schedule take longer, so risk is prioritized with RiskAoA. It is further unique in being the only technology ever produced by AFRL Headquarters.

The capability and algorithms for the program are unprecedented; making RiskAoA the most advanced alternatives management technology employed institutionally and the first demonstrating the predictive character of the risk discipline.

RiskAoA applications are:

1.  Support assessment of risks and events associated with alternatives for capital decisions. This application provides a predictive ‘at-a-glance’ assessment of the number and magnitude of difficulties expected from different alternatives, and the trade-space between each alternative's costs, schedule and delivered capability. It is designed to address requirements from the Joint Capabilities Integration & Development System (JCIDS) process.

2.  Provide easily reviewed documentation for support or defense of acquisition decisions. RiskAoA aids in justifying risk vs. return propositions from alternatives and proposals.

3.  Provide the Risk Adjusted Life Cycle Costs (LCC) estimates required by the General Services Administration (GSA) for the Analysis of Alternatives.

4.  Used aggressively to determine the most probable courses of action of competitor or adversaries, to within the limits of naming options, criteria and the RiskAoA forecasting tool.

The program is easy to use requiring only a few entries:  Documentation including naming the study, and identified risks, and 2-4 identifying the impacts of each risk. Risks are categorized High (H), Medium (M), Low(L), or Negligible(N). Optional fields are available for documentation and mitigation plans.

RiskAoA includes a forecasting tool, allowing users to determine the level of confidence in the results. The forecasting tool is based on two elements; the worst-case confidence in each of the alternative’s risks, and the number of these risks. The nature of the RiskAoA approach causes input errors to cancel or be moderated. If the confidence of individual risks is better than 50% the forecasting tool becomes a worst-case model.

RiskAoA algorithms were invented and developed by Gregory M. Tyler, and its user interface developed by the MITRE Corporation. The prototype, "RiskHammer" was approved by the US Air Force Electronic Systems Center -Acquisition Center of Excellence (ESC/ACE) in 2002 (see Hanscom Air Force Base ). Since it first release in 2002, it has been validated by other DoD organizations: Air Force Material Command (AFMC) Reporting Units; Validated, Verified and Accredited (VV&A) by AFRL and reviewed by AFMC/EN. It is endorsed DoD wide by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics in 2007 and by the Defense Acquisition University for use in UDDoD Analysis of Alternatives acquisition process.