Abstract: The current invention is a method for modeling the probability of a drill string becoming stuck within a given time frame and a method for applying the model to a well being drilled to reduce the probability of sticking. The model is constructed by performing canonical discriminant analysis on engineering parameters derived from observations taken in historical wells and creating a canonical space with the resulting canonical functions. Posterior probabilities of sticking are then calculated from the historical observations and mapped into the canonical space. To apply the model to a particular well being drilled, the values of the previously derived engineering parameters are calculated from observations in the well being drilled, multiplied by their corresponding canonical coefficients, and summed to obtain a canonical point representation for drilling in that well. This canonical point representation is then mapped into the canonical space to obtain the probability of sticking.