9
Risk Management at Project Level

9.1 INTRODUCTION

Many businesses today depend on project-based activities for their growth and long-term well-being. Although ongoing operation is an important part of any business, it is the project elements that are usually at the cutting edge. This is why project management has emerged as an important and critical part of any going concern.
This chapter describes how project management has evolved, project management team functions and goals, and the concept of project risk management. The chapter also describes risks specific to projects.

9.2 THE HISTORY OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project management, in its modern form, began to take root only a few decades ago. Starting in the early 1960s, businesses, especially SBUs and other organisations, began to see the benefit of organising work around projects and to understand the critical need to communicate and integrate work across multiple departments and professions.

9.2.1 The Early Years: Late Nineteenth Century

During the latter half of the nineteenth century the rising complexities of the business world led to further evolvement of principles within project management. Large-scale government projects were the impetus for making important decisions that became management decisions. Business leaders found themselves often faced with the daunting task of organising manual labour and the manufacturing and assembly of unprecedented quantities of raw material (Turner and Simister 2000).

9.2.2 Early Twentieth-century Efforts

At the turn of the last century, Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) began his detailed studies of work. He applied scientific reasoning to work by showing that people at work can be analysed and improved by focusing on its elementary parts. He applied his thinking to tasks found in steel mills, such as shovelling sand, lifting and moving parts. Before then, the only way to improve productivity was to demand harder and longer hours from workers. The inscription on Taylor’s tomb in Philadelphia attests to his place in the history of management: ‘the father of scientific management’.
Taylor’s associate, Henry Gantt (1861-1919), studied in great detail the order of operations in work. His studies of management focused on naval ship construction during the First World War (1914 — 1918). His charts, complete with task bars and milestone markers, outline the sequence and duration of all tasks in a process. Gantt chart diagrams proved to be such a powerful analytical tool for managers that the charts remained virtually unchanged for nearly a hundred years. It was not until the early 1970s that link lines were added to these task bars, depicting more precise dependencies between tasks.
Taylor, Gantt and others helped evolve management into a distinct business function that requires study and discipline. In the decades leading up to the Second World War (1939-1945), marketing approaches, industrial psychology and human relations began to take hold as integral parts of business management.

9.2.3 Mid Twentieth-century Efforts

After the Second World War, the complexity of projects and a shrinking wartime labour supply demanded new organisational structures. Complex network diagrams called PERT (Programme Evaluation and Review Technique) charts and the critical path analysis method were introduced, giving managers greater control over massively engineered and extremely complex projects (such as military weapon systems with their huge variety of tasks, risks and numerous interactions at many points in time).
Soon these techniques spread to all types of industries as business leaders sought new management strategies, tools and techniques to handle their businesses’ growth in a quickly changing and competitive world. In the early 1960s, general system theories of science began to be applied to business interactions.

9.2.4 Late Twentieth-century Efforts

This view of business as a human organism implies that in order for a business to survive and prosper, all of its functional parts must work in concert towards specific goals. In the following decades, this approach towards project management began to take root in its modern form. While various business models evolved during this period, they all shared a common underlying structure (especially for larger businesses): that is, the project is managed by a project manager, who puts together a team and ensures the integration and communication of the workflow horizontally across different departments.
Modern project management is a strategic, company-wide approach to the management of all change. Although it is underpinned by the traditional discipline of project management, it is broader in its application, concepts and methods. Central to the modern project management paradigm is the definition of a project according to Lane (1993) as:
a vehicle for tackling business-led change within the organisation.
Using this definition modern project management is applicable to activities not traditionally regarded as project work, such as mission and strategy setting, education and training, and organisational restructuring.

9.3 DEFINITIONS

A project is a unique investment of resources to achieve specific objectives. Projects are realised to produce goods or services in order to make a profit or to provide a service for the community. The project itself is an irreversible change with a life cycle and defined start and completion dates. Any organisation has an ongoing line management of the organisation requiring management skills. According to PMBOK (1996):
Project Management is the planning, organisation, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all involved to achieve project objectives safely and within defined time, cost and performance.
Project management is needed to look ahead at the needs and risks, communicate the plans and priorities, anticipate problems, assess progress and trends, get quality and value for money, and change the plans if needed to achieve objectives (Smith 1995).
Project management includes creating the right conditions by organising and controlling resources to achieve specific objectives (Elbing 2000). Every project has fundamental characteristics that make it unique in some way. These characteristics include objectives, value, timing, scope, size, function, performance criteria, resources, materials, products, processes and other physical parameters that define the project.
Project management is a central point in the organisation’s structure of a project where all information should be channelled. Clients of large projects often have no or less experience in project management than those involved in smaller repetitive projects. The main task is to lead the client through the life cycle and to realise the project on behalf of the client.

9.4 PROJECT MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS

Turner (1994) presented quite a rosy future for project management, and recognised the changes for the years ahead. In this challenging and ever-changing environment, project management has emerged as a discipline that can provide the competitive edge necessary to succeed, given the right manager. The new breed of project manager is seen as a natural sales person who can establish harmonious customer relations and develop trusting relations with stakeholders. In addition to some of the obvious keys to project managers’ success — personal commitment, energy and enthusiasm — it appears that, most of all, successful managers must manifest an obvious desire to see others succeed (Clarke 1993).
The project manager’s responsibilities are broad and fall into three categories: responsibility to the parent organisation, responsibility to the project and the client, and responsibility to members of the project team. Responsibility to the SBU itself includes proper conservation of resources, timely and accurate communication and careful, competent management of the project. It is very important to keep senior management of the parent organisation fully informed about the project’s status, cost, timing and prospects. The project manager should note the chances of being over budget or being late, as well as methods available to reduce the likelihood of these dreaded events. Reports must be accurate and timely if the project manager is to maintain credibility, protect both the corporate body and the SBU from high risk, and allow senior management to intercede where needed.
Communication is a key element for any project manager. Running a project requires constant selling, reselling and explaining the project to corporate and SBU levels, top management, functional departments, clients and all other parties with an interest in the project, as well as to members of the project team itself. The project manager is the project’s liaison with the outside world, but the manager must also be available for problem solving, and for reducing interpersonal conflict between project team members. In effect the project manager is responsible to all stakeholders regarding the project to be managed.
The control of projects is always exercised through people. Senior managers in the organisation are governed by the CEO, who is directed by such groups as the executive committee and/or the board of directors. Senior managers in turn try to exercise control over project managers, and the project managers try to exert control over the project team. Because this is the case, there is a certain amount of ambiguity, and from time to time humans make mistakes. It is therefore important that there are effective communication controls and standards and procedures to follow.
According to Turner and Simister (2000), the roles and responsibilities for the project manager are as follows:
• The project manager is responsible for managing and co-ordinating various issues at project level, and for ensuring coherency and conformity to the project strategy implementation plan by working hand in hand with the strategic business manager.
• The project manager will be more project focused. For example, concerned with the micro aspects of each project in question, such as the mechanics of delivery of a single project to timescale, cost budgets and quality of deliverables.
• In terms of legal focuses, the project manager will abide by planning regulations, environmental restrictions and standards.
• Here the project manager will adopt the standard legal requirements specified at the business level but tailor these requirements to suit each project.
• In terms of risk management, the project manager will need to address all possible risks, mitigate and review, documenting as work progresses.
• The project manager will assess risks in the individual projects, but will report to the business manager on the next level if significant impact on the overall strategy and cost is foreseen.
• In terms of schedule and cost, the project manager will have to look at the individual project, and use the tools and techniques available to analyse it.
• The project manager will be concerned with the individual profitability.
• The project manager will co-ordinate the interface of the individual stages of the project.
• Work should be completed to cost, time and quality restraints.
• Cost plan and cost control must meet the allocated budget for each project.
• The project manager should monitor changes and report them to business level if necessary.
Figure 9.1 illustrates the typical project management functions carried out at project level by the project management team. The different functions are often dependent on the type of project undertaken and these are often monitored by the SBU as well as the project manager.
Figure 9.2 depicts the vertical hierarchy of a construction organisation’s site project management team. All team members report through different routes to the project manager who in turn reports to the SBU.

9.4.1 The Project Team

The project team is made up of people from different organisational units. Their work together must be done in a spirit of tolerance and mutual understanding.
Figure 9.1 Typical project management functions (Merna 2003)
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Figure 9.2 Typical organisation for a multi-disciplinary construction project
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The relationships between the project manger and the line managers are important. Often heads of organisational units who are higher than the project manager in the existing hierarchical organisation do not want to co-operate as they should. They want the power to decide independently on things which are not within their competence. If they do not get what they want they hamper the project through passive or covert opposition. Members of the project team who are higher up the hierarchical ladder sometimes will not permit ‘some project managers’ to report on their work and report on it to an executive (Field and Keller 1999).
Below is a list of typical members of a project team with their usual duties:
Project engineer. This engineer is in charge of product design and development and is responsible for functional analysis, specifications, drawings, cost estimates, quality/reliability, engineering changes and documentation.
Process manufacturing engineer. This engineer’s task is the efficient production of the product or process the project engineer has designed, including responsibility for manufacturing, engineering, design and production, production scheduling and other production tasks.
Commission field manager. This person is responsible for the installation, testing and support of the product/process once it is delivered to the customer.
Contract administrator. The administrator is in charge of all official paperwork, keeping track of customer changes, billings, questions, complaints, legal aspects, costs and other aspects related to the contract authorising the project.
Project controller. The controller keeps daily accounts of budgets, cost variances, labour charges, project supplies and capital status. The controller also makes regular reports and keeps in touch with both the project manager and the company controller. If the administrator does not serve as a historian then the company controller will.
Support services manager. This person is in charge of product support, subcontractors, data processing and general management support functions.
It is important to note that all these roles will not be required in all projects; however, most of these people will be required in large projects. Project managers in charge of smaller projects will often be responsible for nearly all the above roles and tasks.

9.4.2 Project Risk Assessment Teams

Project risk assessment teams can serve the organisation in a number of different ways. They can:
• conduct competent risk assessments for every project
• develop a process risk assessment including standards and procedures for the organisation
• serve a mentoring and consulting role for players in the organisation who need guidance on appropriate risk assessment practices
• offer risk management training, both formally and through the classroom
• select and maintain risk management tools and techniques
• serve as the central resource repository for the distribution of risk management resources to the organisation
• liaise with SBU managers or risk officers.
However, Hillson and Murray-Webster (2006) state that it is a fact that risk attitudes to a particular situation vary from person to person, team to team, organisation to organisation and, some would say, nation to nation. These authors suggest that risk attitude is a source of significant bias on decision making and the effectiveness of the risk management process. They suggest that to improve risk management more should be understood about risk attitude.

9.4.3 Project Goals

The most important task at the beginning of a project is to agree the project’s objectives with the client. Without agreed objectives there is not enough support for the decisions and there is no measurement of success. With the agreed objectives the project management team must identify key indicators for control of the successful project realisation (Gorog 1998). It is also very important to determine at this stage the sharing of risk between the client and the contractor.
The question of project success can be answered on different levels or at different points of view. If one project participant, for example a contractor, architect or consultant, achieves a reasonable profit, the project is a success for this party. From a project management point of view, success is realising a project on time, within budget and to specifications. The project must satisfy the client (Fachtagung Projektmanagement 1998).
For investors their success can be measured in terms of return on their investment. However, there are other measures for success. If the project is a great service for the community it is also a success up to a certain level independent of the costs and completion date. Examples include the Thames Barrier and the Sydney Opera House (Morris and Hough 1987).

9.5 PROJECT STRATEGY ANALYSIS

In the world of project management, it has been common to deal with estimates of task durations and costs as if the information were known with certainty. On occasion, project task workers inflated times and costs and deflated specifications on the grounds that the project manager or SBU manager would arbitrarily cut the budget and duration and add to the specifications, thereby treating the problem as a decision under conflict with the management as an opponent.
In fact, a great majority of all decisions made in the course of managing a project are actually made under conditions of uncertainty. In general, many project managers adopt the view that is usually best to act as if decisions are made under conditions of risk. This will often result in estimates being made about the probability of various outcomes. If project managers use appropriate methods to do this, they can apply the knowledge and skills they have to solving project decision problems.
Project risk management is a process which enables the analysis and management of risks associated with a project. Properly undertaken it will increase the likelihood of successful completion of a project to cost, time and performance objectives. However, it must be noted that no two projects are the same, causing difficulties with analysis and troubleshooting. In most cases things go wrong that are unique to a particular project, industry or working environment. Dealing with project risks is therefore different from situations where there is sufficient data to adopt an actuarial approach (Gareis 1998).
The first step at project level is to recognise that risk exists as a consequence of uncertainty. In all projects there will be risks of various types:
• a technology is yet to be proven (innovation risk)
• lack of resources at the required level
• industrial relations problems
• ambiguity within financial management.
Project risk management is a process designed to remove or reduce the risks which threaten the achievement of the project’s objectives. It is important that management regard it as an integral part of the whole process, and not just simply a set of tools and techniques.

9.6 WHY PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT IS USED

There are many reasons for using project risk management, but the main reason is that it can provide significant benefits far in excess of the cost of performing it.
Turner and Simister (2000) believe benefits gained from using project risk management techniques serve not only the project but also other parties such as the organisation as a whole and its customers. Below is a list of the main benefits of project risk management:
• There is an increased understanding of the project, which in turn leads to the formulation of more realistic plans, in terms of cost estimates and timescales.
• It gives an increased understanding of the risks in a project and their possible impact, which can lead to the minimisation of risks for a party and/or the allocation of risks to the party best suited to handle them.
• There will be a better understanding of how risks in a project can lead to a more suitable type of contract.
• It will give an independent view of the project risks, which can help to justify decisions and enable more efficient and effective management of risks.
• It gives knowledge of the risks in projects which allow assessment of contingencies that actually reflect the risks and which also tend to discourage the acceptance of financially unsound projects.
• It assists in the distinction between good luck and good management and bad luck and bad management.
Beneficiaries from project risk management include the following:
• Corporate and SBU senior management, for whom a knowledge of the risks attached to proposed projects is important when considering the sanction of capital expenditure and capital budgets.
• The clients, as they are more likely to get what they want, when they want it and for a cost they can afford.
• The project management team, who want to improve the quality of their work. It will help meet project management objectives such as cost, time and performance.
• Stakeholders in the project or investment.
Project risk management should be a continuous process that can be started at any early stage of the life cycle of a project and can be continued until the costs of using it are greater than the potential benefits to be gained. The authors believe that it will be far more effective to begin project risk management at the start of a project because the effects of using it diminish as the project travels through its life cycle.
Norris et al. (2000) believe that there are five points in a project where particular benefits can be achieved by using project risk management:
1. Feasibility study. At this stage the project is most flexible enabling charges to be made which can reduce the risks at a relatively low cost. It can be helpful in deciding between various implementation options for the project.
2. Sanction. The client can make use of this to view the risk exposure associated with the project and can check that all possible steps to reduce or manage the risks have been taken. If quantitative analysis has been undertaken then the client will be able to understand the ‘chance’ that it has of achieving the project objectives (cost, time and performance).
3. Tendering. The contractor can make use of this to ensure that all risks have been identified and to help it set its risk contingency or check risk exposure.
4. Post-tender. The client can make use of this to ensure that all risks have been identified by the contractor and to assess the likelihood of tendered programmes being achieved.
5. At intervals during implementation. This can help improve the likelihood of completing the project to cost and timescale if all risks are identified and are correctly managed as they occur.
Many project management procedures place considerable stress on the quantification of risk, although much evidence suggests that this is erroneous as many top executives ignore data in favour of intuition (Traynor 1990). The emphasis placed on the quantification processes fails to prompt a manager to take account of other areas more difficult or impossible to quantify, thus excluding a large element of risk.

9.7 RECOGNISING RISKS

It would be of great help if one could predict with certainty, at the start of a new project, how the performance, time and cost goals would be met. In some projects it is possible to generate reasonably accurate predictions; however, the larger the project, often the less accurate these predictions will be. There is considerable uncertainty about organisations’ ability to meet project goals. Barnes (2007) states that risk management is intended to shrink the effect of uncertainty on the outcome of projects. All real projects are dominated by the need to add and to change the plans as reality replaces expectation. Barnes suggests that what actually happens is so likely to be different from what was expected that to achieve success, project teams must be masters of uncertainty, not victims.
Uncertainty decreases as the project moves towards completion. From the project start time, the band of uncertainty grows until it is quite wide by the estimated end of the project. As the project develops the degree of uncertainty about the final outcome is reduced. In any event, the more progress made on the project, the less uncertainty there is about achieving the final goal.
The project manager must have a good knowledge of the stakeholders in the project and their power. A consensus must be found with the majority of participants in the project. This is often not easy because stakeholders have conflicting interests. It is important that project managers continuously analyse the positions of the stakeholders, their expectations, their needs and foreseeable reactions. If the stakeholders think that they will only be collaborating once, then it is difficult to achieve creative co-operation (Simon et al. 1997).

9.7.1 Specific Risks at Project Level

A project manager must cope with different cultures and different environments. Different industries have different cultures and environments, as do different regions and countries. The word ‘culture’ refers to the entire way of life for a group of people. It encompasses every aspect of living and has four elements that are common to all cultures: technology, institutions, language and arts (Turner and Simister 2000).
The technology of a culture includes such things as tools used by people, the material things they produce and use, the way they prepare food, their skills and their attitude towards work. It embraces all aspects of their material life (Haynes 1990).
The institutions of a culture make up the structure of society (The Economist 2001). This category contains the organisation of the government, the nature of the family, the way in which religion is organised as well as the content of religious doctrine, the division of labour, the kind of economic system adopted, the system of education, and the way in which voluntary associations are formed and maintained.
Language is another ingredient of all cultures. The language of a culture is always unique because it is developed in ways that meet the express needs of the culture of which it is part. The translation of one language into another is rarely precise. Words carry connotative meanings as well as denotative meanings. The word ‘apple’ may denote a fruit, bribery, ‘for the teacher’, New York City, a colour, a computer, favouritism, ‘of my eye’, as well as several other things (Johnson and Scholes 1999).
Finally, the arts or aesthetic values of a culture are as important to communication as the culture’s language. If communication is the glue that binds culture together, art is the most important way of communicating. Aesthetic values dictate what is found beautiful and satisfying. If a society can be said to have style, it is from the culture’s aesthetic values that style has its source (Jaafari 2001).

9.7.2 What Risks are Assessed at Project Level?

The project audit is a thorough examination of the management of a project, its methodology and procedures, its records, its properties, its budgets and expenditures, and its degree of completion. It may deal with the project as a whole, or only with a part of the project. The formal report should contain the following points:
Current status of the project. Does the work actually meet the planned level of completion?
Future status. Are significant schedule changes likely? If so, indicate the nature of these changes.
Status of crucial tasks. What progress has been made on tasks that could decide the success or failure of the project?
Risk assessment. What is the potential for project failure or monetary loss?
Information pertinent to other projects. What lessons learned from the project being audited can be applied to other projects being undertaken by the organisation?
Limitations of the audit. What assumptions or limitations affect the data in the audit?
Tools and techniques. What tools and techniques were used at project level?
One must note that the project audit is not a financial audit. The project audit is much broader in scope and may deal with the project as a whole or any competent set of components of it. The audit may be concerned with any part of project management. One must also note that the project audit is not a traditional management audit. Management audits are primarily concerned that the organisation’s management systems are in place and operative. The project audit goes beyond this. Amongst other things it is meant to ensure that the project is being appropriately managed. Some managerial systems apply fairly well to all projects, for example the techniques of planning, scheduling, budgeting and of course risk management (Turner and Simister 2000).
The present authors also believe that decommissioning risks play a fundamental part in risk management at project level. These are the risks associated with plant or machinery at the end of the project’s life cycle. For example, what will be done to a nuclear power station when it is decommissioned? What are the costs of decommissioning? What are the environmental effects? And which stakeholders are affected and how?
Cooper and Chapman (1987) suggest that the need for emphasising risk assessment is particularly apparent when projects involve:
• large capital outlays
• unbalanced cash flows requiring a large proportion of the total investment before any returns are obtained
• significant new technology
• unusual legal, insurance or contractual arrangements
• important political, economic or financial parameters
• sensitive environmental or safety issues
• stringent regulatory or licensing requirements.
The present authors consider that all or a combination of a number of the above parameters are fundamental to project strategies. The authors also suggest that each risk identified in the project must have a uniform basis of assessment which will inevitably involve cost and time.
Figure 9.3 shows the level of risk plotted against the stage of the project. As the diagram indicates greater risk at the earlier stages of the project cycle, it can be concluded that this is where the majority of risk management efforts should be concentrated as it offers greater yields (Merna and Owen 1998).
Precise quantitative data are unlikely to be available. Techniques such as Delphi, benchmarking and interviews can be used to get qualitative rankings and quantitative range estimates of both impact and probability. These tools are particularly useful, as the parties involved can be geographically disparate.
Figure 9.3 The project risk cycle
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The greatest change comes at project level. The project strategy plan focuses on how all the macro-environmental factors and the micro-effect project success will be managed in order to meet the goals set by the business unit strategy.
During the feasibility stage of the project qualitative risk analysis and quantitative sensitivity analysis are appropriate. As the project progresses and a project network is defined, computer modelling such as Monte Carlo simulation can be performed. The major advantage is that it considers the effects of variables in combination, resulting in cumulative frequency predictions for the major strategic goals. This technique is particularly useful for selecting mitigating actions as their effect can be predicted by rerunning the modified model.
Khan (2006) suggests that identified risks such as bad weather, supplier unreliability and technical delays can be mitigated in a cost-effective way. Khan states that one solution has its roots in that most fundamental of project planning processes, the project schedule and the associated knowledge network. By incorporating risk and uncertainty parameters in respect of the individual activities within the schedule, and then applying simulation techniques to extrapolate potential outcomes, project managers can build up a precise picture of where mitigation will be most effective. Resources can be intelligently allocated to mitigate against risks where the probability of occurrence and consequence are clearly understood.

9.7.3 Project Managers and Their View of Risks

People vary in their approach to risk assessment and estimation; there is a tendency to shift the preferences of risk depending on budgets, resources and CEO characteristics. In the authors’ opinion, the managers’ previous experience in risk assessment and estimation will play an important role in how they respond to identified and quantified risk. Overconfidence about the estimation of risk is another factor in how individuals regard risk. Overall, individuals are poor assessors of risk. Experience, subjectivity and the way risk is framed play a major role in project managers’ perceptions, to the detriment of project management.
Issues of risk that relate to people are often reclassified as management of ‘human resources’ and so are ignored as risk factors; consequently a large element of risk assessment is excluded from project risk management. The nature of the uncertainty which people contribute to the project can be divided into two principal areas: human resource management issues, concerned with effective management competencies and practices, and the perspectives of stakeholders concerning the project and its attendant risks (Oldfield and Ocock 1999).
The importance of effective management practices has often been highlighted, the main concerns being centred around poor leadership, lack of communication, lack of provision of necessary resources, insufficient use of resources, work overload, lack of knowledge, lack of decision-making authority, and inability to estimate accurately tasks and processes. Identification of these dimensions would aid the project manager’s decision making and improve the quality and efficiency of the management process (Oldfield and Ocock 1999).
In many cases of project failure, the necessary information concerning risks and problems is available within project teams but often not sought out by management (Oldfield and Ocock 1999). A common problem in project risk management processes is the need to determine the relative significance of different sources of risk so as to guide subsequent risk management effort and ensure it remains cost effective. Chapman and Ward (1997) consider the use of probability impact grids to identify sources of risk which will receive most attention. In particular it is important to distinguish between the size of impacts and the probability of impacts occurring, the range of feasible responses and the time available to respond.

9.8 PROJECT RISK STRATEGY

Risk management is used throughout the full life cycle of the project from pre-tender through to after-market.
The risk management plan is the process of identifying and controlling the business, technical, financial and commercial risks throughout the project’s life cycle by eliminating or reducing the likelihood of occurrence and the potential impact caused by any threat. For commercial undertakings, any impact on the project outcome is to be expressed in the terms of cost. Financial impact is therefore a baseline to measure risk. Risk that has a timescale is to be converted into cost. This will enable accounts to raise provisions early in the project if they are needed. It is important to remember that strategic project planning is the synergy between a best practice culture of project management and the effective implementation of corporate strategy, goals and objectives (Blanden 2002).

9.9 THE FUTURE OF PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT

The project management profession is going through tremendous change – both evolutionary and revolutionary. Some of these changes are internally driven, while many are externally driven.
In discussing future issues in project management, Turner (1994) cited the study of risk management as an emerging area for academic study based on journal submissions. Whilst it may be said that the further development of technically specialist areas will certainly take place, the project manager’s role will almost certainly move from that of a technical specialist, who has taken on the role of co-ordinator of a project, to that of a change agent. The function that these managers perform will be recognised as increasingly important for the survival of the organisation in all sectors, by management of all the stakeholders in projects. In addition there is the search for new management structures (Maylor 1996).
Barnes (2007) suggests that the way to make risk management work is to make it integrated, by taking steps to ensure that key players want to come and take part in the process because it benefits them all. Barnes suggests that there are two ways of moving in this direction:
• to give risk management meetings more importance than ordinary project progress meetings
• to make sure that any team member can bring a new risk to the table which the others will help to deal with.

9.10 SUMMARY

Projects are unique, novel and transient endeavours undertaken to deliver business development objectives. However, the authors believe that the long-term objective regardless of the project in question will always be profit.
This chapter outlined the history of project management and its functions. It also highlighted the importance of project management and its teams. Project risk, project managers as risks, and project risk strategy were also considered within this chapter.
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