The Theme of Risk Management

The Theme of Risk Management

The papers in this issue of the Journal come from different industry sectors, yet there can be a common theme that ties them together. Two of the papers address explicitly the issue of risk management, while the other three may be related to it in different degrees. One of the critical factors for project success is risk identification, as determined by Chua et al. (1999). The importance of risk management cannot be overemphasized. Failure to identify crucial risk elements in a project can lead to significant project failures in terms of cost and schedule. The first paper examines the causes for disruptions, delays and failures in the delivery of IT-based services. The quality of service did not meet expectations when compared to that before the project. Among a number of key reasons for such failures, poor quality and risk management practices stand out with extremely low scoring, with the latter being the worst. A systematic framework comprising project management processes including a risk analysis plan was recommended. The second paper looks at the persistent high rate of failure in Asia of projects of complex products and systems (CoPS). Specifically, it evaluates the maturity levels of risk management constructs in four perspectives: organizational context, risk management, project management and technological processes. With increased uncertainty, there is a corresponding increase in the maturity levels of some of these constructs, especially, of organizational culture, risk planning and identification, process improvement and integration and project management process to deal with the increased risk.