New Course Offering – Working with Risk and Uncertainty

Improving Uncertainty Assessments that Underpin Our Analyses

More and more companies in the oil and gas industry are making use of probabilistic models and risk analysis. Models are becoming more powerful and in combination with new forecasting techniques and computer simulations can now perform probabilistic analyses with ease. One area that has not received much attention, though, is one of the most important – quantifying the uncertainty that underlies these analyses. Whether estimating costs, schedule, commercial or subsurface uncertainty, too often, the range and chance factor assessments that are needed are rushed in the interest of time, even though we all know about “garbage in – garbage out”. When rushed, the assessments often overlook the grounding of the experts in the terminology of uncertainty, and in the fundamentals of quantitatively expressing our strength of belief about an uncertainty.

Decision Frameworks has developed a new training course focused specifically on providing a solid foundation for those who work with uncertainty and risk in any capacity. Designed to be suitable for team members, analysts, and practitioners alike, the course can be tailored to fit the particular needs of each audience. The Working with Risk and Uncertainty course will be offered as an open enrolment course, as well as be introduced as new modules in some of our leading internal course offerings.

Participants will learn the fundamental terminology of probability and statistics and the importance of quantifying and calibrating our judgements about the future. Through simple yet effective exercises, they will learn to make calibrated range and confidence estimates that are consistent and consistently correct. Attendees will also learn how to avoid some of the more common mistakes that are made when combining uncertain variables. Simple models will be built to illustrate the concepts and to provide practice working with uncertainty and risk.

The course will be offered in a variety of modules to address different needs. There will be a half day version for Subject Matter Experts, a full day version for those who use ranges and chance factors in simple models, and two and three day workshops for those who need to understand interactions and dependencies among variables in more complex models. With the shorter workshops, participants will be able to provide quantitative, accurate descriptions of their view of unknown quantities or the likelihood of future events. In the longer versions, participants will explore assessments of variable interactions and their applications in more complex problems.

Who should attend?

• Uncertainty estimators
• Engineers
• Geologists
• Geophysicists
• Economists
• Managers