What-if Simulations in Project Insight let you model alternate scenarios for work that is already planned or in progress, without committing changes to your live project plan. You can explore schedule shifts, staffing changes, and scope or effort adjustments, then evaluate the downstream impact to capacity and budget before deciding what to apply.
This capability is designed for project managers and portfolio leaders who need to answer questions like: What happens if we start this later? What if we add effort? What if we reassign the work? without disrupting active execution.
What is a what-if simulation?
A what-if simulation is a variant of a project’s task list that you can modify safely. The variant allows you to:
Adjust dates, hours, tasks, and assignments
Review how those changes affect the project and downstream rollups
Compare multiple options side by side
Apply the best option to the official plan only when you are ready
Until you apply a variant, the simulation changes remain separate from the live plan. This allows you to test scenarios without triggering plan changes across Project Insight.
(Screenshot: “What-if simulations” option appearing in the project edit area after the add-on is enabled. Power Tutorial approx. 4:05–4:20.)
What problems what-if simulations help you solve
What-if simulations are most useful when priorities, scope, or resourcing change and decisions need to be made quickly and confidently.
Common scenarios include:
Priority shifts: A new initiative appears and you need to see the tradeoffs.
Capacity conflicts: You want to reduce overages by moving start dates or rebalancing workload.
Effort changes: Scope expands and you need to understand what additional hours do to timelines and budgets.
Resource changes: You need to reassign work to different people or roles and see the capacity impact.
Budget forecasting: You want to understand the cost impact of various options before committing.
What-if simulations are especially valuable when leadership introduces a new non-negotiable initiative that was not in the original plan. Instead of relying on gut feel, teams can show clear tradeoffs and make decisions based on capacity, timeline, and cost impact.
(Screenshot: Resource Allocation report showing overages and planned vs active work before simulations are applied. Power Tutorial approx. 2:20–3:10.)
How what-if simulations differ from planning projects
Project Insight has long supported planning or inactive projects that can be included in allocation reports. That approach works well when a project is not yet active.
What-if simulations are designed for work already in flight or already defined. Instead of changing the real plan and triggering downstream effects, simulations let you explore alternatives in isolation and apply changes only when a decision has been made.
Key concepts to know
A variant is a separate version of a project plan that exists only for scenario analysis. Each variant represents a different “what if” path you want to evaluate without changing the official project plan.
When you create a variant, Project Insight starts with either:
A copy of the current task list, or
A defined change such as a different start date
From there, you can safely make changes inside the variant while the live plan remains untouched.
Variants allow you to:
Explore multiple approaches to the same project
Compare timelines, effort, and resource impact side by side
Test changes without triggering alerts, recalculations, or downstream updates
Common examples include:
Option A: Shift the project start date by several weeks to reduce near-term capacity overages.
Option B: Increase hours, add tasks, or assign additional resources to accommodate new scope or accelerate delivery.
You can create as many variants as needed for a project and switch between them at any time. Only one variant is active for editing at a time, which helps keep changes clear and intentional.
Until a variant is applied, all changes remain isolated and are used only for comparison and reporting.
Baseline, non-negotiables, and thresholds
Scenario planning works best when you start with a clear baseline: what work is already committed and how it aligns to organizational goals. From there, identify the non-negotiables, which are the projects or constraints that cannot be compromised, such as regulatory compliance, critical customer commitments, or board-level goals.
To evaluate scenarios consistently, define thresholds that help you decide whether an option is acceptable. For example, you may set guidelines such as:
No critical project is delayed more than a defined number of days
Key teams are not overallocated beyond a defined percentage
Budget remains within an approved range for the quarter or program
These thresholds help teams present options as clear, measurable tradeoffs instead of opinions.
Impact indicators
When you change dates, hours, or assignments in a variant, Project Insight visually highlights how that version differs from the official plan. These indicators make it easy to quickly spot what has changed and assess the impact.
Impact indicators compare the active variant to the official project plan, not to other variants. They are visual cues only and do not represent warnings or errors. Their purpose is to help you understand the magnitude and direction of change before deciding whether to apply it.
(Screenshot: Impact indicator highlighting changes to start date or total hours compared to the official plan. Power Tutorial approx. 4:55–6:20.)
Apply when ready
Once a variant represents the path you want to take, you can apply it to make it the official project plan.
Before a variant is applied:
Changes exist only in the simulation
Reports can reflect the scenario for evaluation
No updates are made to the live project plan
After a variant is applied:
The selected changes become the official project plan
Schedules, capacity, and budget rollups are updated
The plan reflects the chosen direction moving forward
This clear boundary allows teams to experiment freely while ensuring that only intentional decisions affect active work.
(Screenshot: “Apply” action for a selected variant and confirmation that it updates the official task list. Power Tutorial approx. 5:45–6:05.)
Where you can evaluate simulations
What-if simulations can be reviewed both within projects and inside key reports. Scenario planning is rarely limited to a single project. Decisions often affect shared resources, timelines, and budgets across teams and portfolios, and reports provide the context needed to compare options before making commitments.
Portfolio-level reporting is often where executive decisions happen. Using allocation and capacity views, teams can show what changes when a new initiative is inserted, what must move, what can pause, and what tradeoffs exist between cost, timing, and workload. This makes it easier to bring leadership a small set of realistic options instead of a single yes or no answer.
Project task list
Inside a project, simulations let you modify tasks, dates, hours, and resource assignments without affecting the live plan. A visual indicator shows which variant you are working in so changes are clearly separated from the official plan.
(Screenshot: Project task list view with a variant selected and the yellow indicator bar visible. Power Tutorial approx. 5:25–5:40.)
Resource Allocation reports
From the Resource Allocation report, you can choose which simulation options to apply for reporting. This allows you to toggle scenarios on or off and see how each option affects capacity and overages across teams.
This is especially helpful for quarterly or annual planning when evaluating multiple projects at once.
(Screenshot: Simulation selector within the Resource Allocation report and the “Apply + Run Report” workflow. Power Tutorial approx. 7:15–8:10.)
Portfolio Allocation reports
Portfolio Allocation reports extend what-if simulations into budget analysis. You can see how scenario changes affect cost rollups across portfolios, programs, and projects.
This makes it easier to understand the financial impact of different delivery options before committing.
(Screenshot: Portfolio Allocation report showing simulation selection and rolled-up cost totals. Power Tutorial approx. 10:35–11:20.)
Example use cases
Reduce capacity overages by shifting start date
If a team is overallocated during a specific period, you can create a variant that shifts the project start date. This allows you to immediately see how the change reduces overages in the affected time frame. This is especially useful when leadership wants to understand whether timing alone can resolve capacity issues without adding cost.
(Screenshot: Project start date shift example and resulting reduction in overages. Power Tutorial approx. 4:45–5:10 and 8:15–8:35.)
Understand the impact of increased scope or effort
When project scope grows, you can adjust hours or add tasks in a variant and instantly see how the increased effort affects workload, timelines, and rollups. This helps teams quantify impact early and avoid committing to changes without understanding downstream consequences.
(Screenshot: Increased hours highlighted in a variant and the resulting total change. Power Tutorial approx. 6:05–6:25.)
Compare portfolio cost outcomes before committing
Portfolio managers can evaluate multiple scenarios and see how each one impacts total cost at the portfolio and program level before approving a direction. This supports more confident prioritization and funding decisions at the executive level.
(Screenshot: Portfolio rollup showing projected cost under a selected scenario. Power Tutorial approx. 11:35–11:50.)
Summary
What-if simulations give you a safe, data-driven way to explore options, evaluate tradeoffs, and make informed decisions. By separating scenario planning from active execution, teams can respond to change confidently while maintaining clarity across projects, resources, and budgets.
(Screenshot: Simulations available across projects and reports. Power Tutorial approx. 9:40–10:10.)
Additional resources
Power Tutorial: What-if Simulations in Project Insight
PDU Webinar: What-if Simulations for Executive Planning
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