One-Minute Spotlight
THE CRYSTAL BALL SCENARIO ANALYSIS TOOL
Have you ever wondered which combination of assumption values gives you a particular result?
The Oracle Crystal Ball Scenario Analysis tool runs a simulation and then sorts and matches all the
resulting values of a target forecast with their corresponding assumption values. The output table
shows the values of the target forecast extracted for the percentile or value range you designate.
You can run the Scenario Analysis tool on any Crystal Ball model. The example below calculates the
Net Present Value (NPV) for an oil field prospect where several key variables, including recovery
rate, well rate, and well cost, are uncertain.
OPENING THE TOOL AND SELECTING A FORECAST
You can open the Scenario Analysis tool through the More Tools menu.
When the tool opens, select a forecast from the Target Forecast list (there is only one forecast in
this example). Click Next to view and set options.
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Scenario Analysis, continued
SPECIFYING THE OPTIONS
Use the Options screen to select the range of result values you want to examine and how you
want Crystal Ball to run the simulation.
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Scenario Analysis, continued
Specify the forecast results you are interested in using a range of either percentiles or values. For
example, you could choose to look at only the top 10% of all NPV results (the 90%-100%-percentile
range), or you could choose to look at all trials where the NPV was within the range of $200M-
$300M.
In this example, you will view the top 10% of the NPV results, as set in the screen illustration. Click
Run to run the tool.
ANALYZING THE SCENARIOS
The tool creates a new workbook and populates it with the sorted forecast results, from low to
high value, as shown below.
Each row represents one trial of the simulation, or scenario. Column A contains the percentile
ranking of the forecast value in Column B. The remaining columns are the assumption values that
produced the forecast value.
To view any scenario within your model, simply select the row and click the Paste Selected
Scenario button. Crystal Ball then recalculates the workbook with the selected assumption values
and updates the forecast cell. If you were interested in the 95 th percentile scenario result, you
would select that row, as shown above, and then click Paste Selected Scenario.
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Scenario Analysis, continued
VIEWING A SCENARIO IN YOUR MODEL
The 95th percentile scenario is entered into the model. You can now examine this outcome in
detail.
Scroll through the scenarios in your model using the Paste Next Scenario and Paste Previous
Scenario buttons. Click Reset to restore your original values.
You can also use the table of values in that workbook to determine if there are any obvious
relationships between a specific range of forecast values and your key assumptions. For example,
you could create a scatter chart in Microsoft Excel to check for patterns between the highest NPVs
and Well Costs.
For more information or to contact us, browse to
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/crystalball/overview/index.html.
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