reference textbooks books for risk and decision analysis

ENTREPRENEURIAL RISK
> The Entrepreneur's Survival Guide
RISK ANALYSIS
> Introduction to Risk Analysis: A Systematic Approach to Science-Based Decision Making
> Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis: A Systems Engineering Perspective
> Risk Analysis : Foundations, Models, and Methods
> Risk Assessment and Decision Making in Business and Industry - A Practical Guide
> Risk Modeling for Determining Value and Decision Making
PETROLEUM RISK ANALYSIS
> Risk Analysis and Management of Petroleum Exploration Ventures
STATISTICS
> Business Math & Statistics (4th edition)
> Contemporary Business Statistics

ENTREPRENEURIAL RISK

The Entrepreneur's Survival Guide
By Mark Paul - Partner, Synergy Consulting Group, LLC

Description:

Charting the path for your company's success is risky business! The Entrepreneur's Survival Guide provides insights from the author's years of in-the-trenches leadership experiences running companies. It has 27 "how-to" chapters that enable readers to navigate this path to lower risk and achieve better results. The book covers four areas:

Leadership Effectiveness
Building Your Company
Improving Marketing and Sales Effectiveness
Improving Your Operational Effectiveness

In the book, Mark Paul shares his "secrets to success" to help readers assess their situation and chart a course to their company's next level. In the chapter entitled "How to Predict the Future," the author refers to how Crystal Ball can help you "assess the likely outcome of any series of difficult and complex situations." As the author told us: "I was amazed how well Crystal Ball helped me get a handle on a 'you-bet-your-company-decision' - which enabled me to build a company that is still going strong!"

The forward to the 1st edition provides insights into how you can lower your risks - whether building a new company, taking an existing company to its next level, or in spinning out a stand-alone venture. "Entrepreneurial experience is very difficult to teach efficiently and pass along; it's like "capturing lightning in a bottle." Mark Paul has captured the "lightning in a bottle" that is the entrepreneurial experience. The Entrepreneur's Survival Guide methodically and effectively outlines the process of evaluating a business concept and bringing it to fruition as a new enterprise. I was amazed at how well the book captures the essence of the steps required to increase the chances of entrepreneurial success, yet is so easy to read and absolutely practical. This is a must read for those considering entrepreneurial pursuits." Eric Pozzo, VP - Operations: First Silicon Solutions, Inc.

The 2nd edition's forward by Debi Coleman, Managing Partner at SmartForest Ventures in Portland, Oregon sums it up best: "Achieving entrepreneurial success is an awesome challenge - somewhat akin to climbing Mt. Everest. This book can serve as your wise and trusted "Sherpa" on this formidable journey. The Guide distills an enormous amount of information, wit, and wisdom into a highly readable digest for the entrepreneur."

NOTE: Mark Paul is offering Crystal Ball users a special price. If you write "CBU" in the order code, you can purchase the book for $15! (Not valid with other offers.) Executive Summaries and ordering information can be found at Synergy Consulting Group's Web site at: www.synergy-usa.com/esg2.htm.

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RISK ANALYSIS

Introduction to Risk Analysis: A Systematic Approach to Science-Based Decision Making
By Daniel M. Byrd III and C. Richard Cothern

Description:

Introduction to Risk Analysis examines risk and the structure of analysis. Emphasizing the prediction, the authors discuss the quantitative nature of risk and explore quantitative topics, including graphing data, logarithmic thinking, and risk estimation.

The book focuses on fundamental aspects of risk, using environmental and health risks as its primary examples. The chapters include a discussion of functions, models, and uncertainties; the regulatory process; risk assessment (exposure, dosimetry, epidemiology, toxicology, and risk characterization); comparative risk assessment; ecological risk assessment; risk management; and risk communication. Six case studies, references to additional literature, addresses to internet sites, and over 50 figures are also included. The risk characterization chapter takes the reader through a probabilistic assessment in detail. The authors make powerpoint slides sets for each chapter available for educational purposes.

Introduction to Risk Analysis provides readers with a comprehensive, integrated guide to environmental risk analysis for regulated substances and processes. Providing a practical look at risk from a regulatory perspective, the book features the policies of regulatory agencies concerned with health, safety, and environmental risks, including CPSC, OSHA, EPA, USDA, DOT, FDA, NRC, and state environmental agencies. It enables professionals in agencies and regulated industries to understand and initiate regulatory risk analyses independently and is suitable for classroom use as a textbook.

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Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis : A Systems Engineering Perspective
By Paul R. Garvey

Description:

Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis : A Systems Engineering Perspective offers a careful blend of theory and practice, providing a comprehensive approach for assessing the impact of unplanned events on the cost of engineering modern complex systems.

Cost is a driving consideration in decisions that determine how a high-technology system is developed, produced, and sustained. Critical to these decisions is quantifying how technological and economic risks may affect a system's cost. This readable reference/text illustrates how probability theory is applied to model, measure, and manage risk in the cost of a systems engineering project.

Containing over 700 references, equations, and illustrations, and providing more than 100 theoretical and applied exercises, Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis is suitable for cost, quality, reliability, and industrial engineers, systems engineers, cost and operations research analysts, management scientists, project and production engineers, and engineering managers, and is an extraordinary text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines.

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Risk Analysis : Foundations, Models, and Methods (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, 45) by Louis A. Cox

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Risk Analysis : Foundations, Models, and Methods
(International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, 45)
By Louis A. Cox

Description:

Risk Analysis: Foundations, Models, and Methods fully addresses the questions of "What is health risk analysis?" and "How can its potentialities be developed to be most valuable to public health decision-makers and other health risk managers?"

Risk analysis provides methods and principles for answering these questions. It is divided into methods for assessing, communicating, and managing health risks. Risk assessment quantitatively estimates the health risks to individuals and to groups from hazardous exposures and from the decisions or activities that create them. It applies specialized models and methods to quantify likely exposures and their resulting health risks. Its goal is to produce information to improve decisions. It does this by relating alternative decisions to their probable consequences and by identifying those decisions that make preferred outcomes more likely.

Health risk assessment draws on explicit engineering, biomathematical, and statistical consequence models to describe or simulate the causal relations between actions and their probable effects on health. Risk communication characterizes and presents information about health risks and uncertainties to decision-makers and stakeholders. Risk management applies principles for choosing among alternative decision alternatives or actions that affect exposure, health risks, or their consequences.

Topics covered include Introduction and Basic Risk Models, Risk Assessment Modeling (such as monte Carlo analysis), Statistical Risk Modeling, Causality, Individual Risk Management Decisions, Choosing Among Risk Profiles, Multi-Attribute, Multi-Person, and Multi-Period Risks, and Multi-Party Risk Management Decision Processess. While this volume does not endorse particular software products, it does mention Crystal Ball and does cover several eamples involving probabilistic modeling.

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Risk Assessment and Decision Making in Business and Industry - A Practical Guide
By Glenn Koller

Description:

This book is an easy-to-understand resource for risk/uncertainty assessment and decision making of all types. The volume begins with a simple explanation of the process of risk assessment and expands to such topics as communication, building consensus, risk assessment technologies, and Monte Carlo analysis.

The author, who has responsibilities for risk management, analysis and training at BP Amoco, emphasizes that the technical aspects of risk assessment and decision-making effort are secondary to the cultural, organizational, and interpersonal facets of establishing a framework. Areas examined include brokerage-house portfolio management, legal decision making, construction, oil/gas exploration, environmental assessments, engineering, marketing, government, manufacturing, and others.

The entire volume is presented as a narrative, keeping statistical jargon to a minimum and explaining all concepts, techniques, and processes in a straightforward manner. The book enables readers who are not risk experts to effect an easy execution of the risk/uncertainty model building effort.

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Risk Modeling for Determining Value and Decision Making
By Glenn Koller

Description:

Also by Glenn Koller (see above text), this book presents comprehensive examples of risk/uncertainty analyses from a broad range of applications, including decision/option selection, environmental assessments, identification of business drivers, insurance, investing, production sharing, manufacturing, pricing, schedule and optimization, security, law, and other applications.

Emphasizing value as the focus of risk assessment, this book offers discussions on how to make decisions using risk models and the insights that such models can provide. The presentation of each model also includes computer code that encapsulates its logic and offers direction on how to apply the model to other types of problems. The last few chapters discuss the fundamentals of risk assessment similar to the previously described book.

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PETROLEUM RISK ANALYSIS

Risk Analysis and Management of Petroleum Exploration Ventures
By Peter R. Rose

Description:

This book is a comprehensive, fully integrated, state-of-the-art treatise covering the objective evaluation of exploratory drilling ventures and key concepts for efficient, profitable management of such projects. The book has a strong practical orientation, setting forth sound, tested principles and procedures, with simple, effective explanations of the underlying concepts.

Make E&P uncertainty your friend, not your enemy
Estimate prospect reserves, rates, and costs objectively
Estimate the chance of prospect success responsibly
Evaluate new plays as full-cycle economic business ventures
Determine the best "economic yardsticks"
Manage E&P by managing the E&P portfolio
Determine what share of a venture you should take
Discover how to avoid the "winner’s curse" in bidding
Learn how to evaluate your firm’s geotechnical performance
Learn effective risk-analysis procedures developed by other companies

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STATISTICS

Business Math & Statistics (4th edition)
By Robert Holt and Courtney Muller

Description:

This textbook with software is a course for anyone needing to acquire the basic mathematical and statistical skills required to perform operations critical to business functions.

The product gives a broad overview and introduces the most popular forms of forecasting techniques. The chapters cover basic mathematics, forecasting concepts, regression analysis, probability distributions, and decision analysis. This product can also be customized by the author for organizations.

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Contemporary Business Statistics with Microsoft Excel
By Anderson, David R. (University of Cincinnati), Sweeney, Dennis J. (University of Cincinnati), and Williams, Thomas A. (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Description:

The purpose of Contemporary Business Statistics with Microsoft® Excel is to give students, primarily in the fields of business administration and economics, an introduction to the field of statistics and its many applications. The text is applications oriented and written with the needs of the nonmathematician in mind; the mathematical prerequisite is knowledge of algebra. This book does not contain or use Crystal Ball but is an excellent primer for statistics and Excel.

Applications of data analysis and statistical methodology are an integral part of the organization and presentation of the text material. The discussion and development of each technique is presented in an application setting, with the statistical results providing insights to decisions and solutions to problems.

Although the book is applications oriented, the authors have taken care to provide a sound methodological development and to use notation that is generally accepted for the topic being covered. Hence, students will find that this text provides good preparation for the study of more advanced material. A bibliography to guide further study is included in an appendix. Contains 15 case problems and over 250 exercises and examples based on real data and recent sources referencing statistical information.

Visit South-Western College Publishing for further detail on this textbook.

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