Derek Salkeld has been a risk analyst and risk manager for 20 years. He trained as a geophysicist and led a signal processing systems design team for a UK military systems manufacturer. He has extensive experience of multi-disciplinary engineering projects covering a wide range of assets including: the assessment of Network Rail's IT investment programme; the development of an asset investment model of waste water treatment systems owned by the Water Service of Northern Ireland and the business case for the London Cross Rail system. He was risk manager on both the recently opened London cable car and the East London Line projects. He is currently advisor to London Underground Limited on its stations capital works programme and to Genesis Power on its Tekapo hydro electric projects in New Zealand. He is a doctoral research student at the University of Exeter researching risk management methods.
’The book provides a multitude of aids to help with determining risks, identifying costs, and how the risks affect the schedule. These aids include examples, areas to address and checklists... it stresses the importance of tying risks to people through assignment of ownership and risks to the project budget through allocation of contingences.... The project management and risk management professions may get a better reputation because of projects getting completed at a higher rate and on time and within budget.’ PM World Journal, September 2013 ’Derek Salkeld’s book is about understanding the uncertainty inherent in projects, which leads to the inability to predict timescales and costs precisely at the beginning of a project. In an industry where even large companies are wedded to single-valued estimating techniques, against which they may enter fixed-price contracts with penalties for lateness, (or judge the performance of the project delivery staff), the content of this book provides valuable material to help manage expectations, obligations, and funding.’ Camel Blog (Arras People), January 2015