When calculating project contingency, most attention is given to project-specific risks: the risks identified in the project risk register that can be

assessed, quantified and incorporated into a contingency assessment. That is important, but it is only part of the picture.

Another source of uncertainty is often overlooked: systemic risk, sometimes referred to as business-as-usual risk. Unlike project-specific risks, systemic risk is

not typically captured in the project risk register. Instead, it arises from broader factors such as industry conditions, organisational capability,

project complexity and the delivery environment. Because it sits outside the risk register, systemic risk can be easy to miss. The challenge is that contingency is

an allowance for uncertainty, not only an allowance for identified risks. The good news is that systemic uncertainty does not need to be treated as guesswork.

Established industry methodologies provide structured ways to assess and quantify it. Projectick’s in-house Monte Carlo simulation tool helps address this

challenge by considering both project-specific risks and systemic uncertainty, providing a more complete basis for project contingency evaluation. A contingency

assessment that considers only project-specific risk tells only part of the story. Does your contingency assessment account for both?