Many firms expend a great amount of effort to increase the customer value of their system/product development (PD) processes.  Yet, in PD, determining how and when value is added is problematic.  The goal of a PD process is to produce a product "recipe" that satisfies requirements.  Design work is done both to specify the recipe in increasing detail and to verify that it does in fact conform to requirements.  As design work proceeds, certainty increases surrounding the ability of the evolving product design (including its production process) to be the final product recipe (i.e., technical performance risk decreases).  I propose that making progress and adding customer value in PD equates with producing useful information that reduces performance risk.  I also present a methodology--the risk value method--that integrates current approaches such as technical performance measure (TPM) tracking charts and risk reduction profiles.  The methods are demonstrated with an industrial example of an uninhabited combat aerial vehicle (UCAV).  The research has led me to the rather strong, provocative statement that project management is risk management. If time permits, I also discuss further work on opportunity management.

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