Solving for Project Risk Management: Understanding the Critical Role of Uncertainty in Project Management

CHAPTER 1

Show Me the Data

The Enduring Problems of Cost Growth and Schedule Delays

Gottfried von Leibniz was a German polymath who lived in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Two of his most well-known contributions include coinventing differential and integral calculus and his philosophy of optimism. Leibniz believed that we live in the “best of all possible worlds.”¹ This was lampooned by the French writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire, who caricatured him as Professor Pangloss in his novel Candide. Throughout the novel Pangloss suffers from a series of misfortunes. Among other calamities, he is enslaved on a Turkish ship and almost executed by the Inquisition. Despite this, Pangloss remains optimistic. This gave rise ...