Describes the current status of SCERT (synergistic contingency evaluation and response techniques). SCERT is an attempt to provide a systematic approach to the planning and financial evaluation of large engineering projects involving significant risks. Its mathematical basis is a decision tree/semi-Markov process representation of a project. This basis is integrated with qualitative risk assessment procedures. The emphasis is preplanning positive responses to potential contingencies, the need to get approximate answers to the right questions, and the need to integrate specialist expert opinion of various kinds and more general seasoned intuition.