THE PROACTIVE RISK PM WEEKLY

Red Air Ahead

Issue #018

Date: 4 May 2026

Hey there, Reader,

It was supposed to be a 2-day convoy movement in Afghanistan.

We had it planned.

We knew the route.

We knew the resources.

We had Marines who had done this kind of movement before... experienced, trained, ready. Two days. Simple.

It took almost a week.

Somewhere in the middle of that movement, we hit "Red Air." That's what we called the sandstorm conditions where aircraft, including medevac helicopters, can't safely fly. When Red Air hits, we stop moving and go firm.

It was our first time and we didn't know what to expect.

Nobody planned for it. We sat there for days, burning through supplies, burning through patience, completely at the mercy of something we didn't account for. It was miserable. And when we finally got back, Red Air became a permanent line item in every future convoy contingency plan we built.

Alright, Now Lets Get Proactive Over Reactive!

PMI-RMP® Exam Prep Course kicking off May 16th.

Quote of the Week

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes, but no plans.”

~ Peter F. Drucker

Lesson of the Week

Your Project Has Red Air Too

Here's the thing... that story isn't just about Afghanistan. It's about every estimate you've ever given on a project.

When you say "this task takes 2 days," you're predicting based on how it felt last time. Not based on everything that could pull you off that work.

Like:

A stakeholder who needs something urgent
A vendor who delivers late
A team member who calls in sick
An afternoon that disappears into a meeting

That's Red Air. And most project schedules have zero room for it.

Douglas Hubbard wrote about this in The Failure of Risk Management, a book that honestly challenged some of my own thinking. His core argument: most of what we call risk management is theater.

We fill out the probability and impact matrix. We color boxes red, yellow, green. And we feel like we did something.

But a heat map doesn't tell you the range of realistic outcomes. It doesn't tell you the probability your deadline is actually achievable.

Quantitative risk analysis does. And most PMs skip it because they think it's too complicated, or not applicable to their situation.

I Built You Something

I built a free Monte Carlo Schedule Risk Simulator specifically to knock that myth down.

It's not an enterprise tool. It's not trying to be. It's an educational tool designed to show you, visually, in plain English, what probabilistic thinking actually looks like when applied to your project schedule. You enter your task estimates (optimistic, most likely, pessimistic), hit run, and in seconds you see your P50, P70, P80, and P90 finish dates. Meaning: here's the date you'll finish 50% of the time. Here's the date you'll finish 80% of the time. Here's what your schedule actually looks like when you stop pretending Red Air doesn't exist.

If you've never run a Monte Carlo analysis, this is where you start.

👉 Try the free tool: riskreadypm.com

(It takes about 60 seconds. No account required. No PhD required.)

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"The RMP: 3 Mistakes Everyone Makes"

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