Citation:
Elmar Kutsch, Mark Hall, Deliberate ignorance in project risk management, International Journal of Project Management, Volume 28, Issue 3, April 2010, Pages 245-255
Abstract:
The management of project risk is considered a key discipline by most
organisations involved in projects. Best practice project risk management
processes are claimed to be self-evidently correct. However, project risk
management involves a choice between which information is utilized and which is
deemed to be irrelevant and hence excluded. Little research has been carried out
to ascertain the manifestation of barriers to optimal project risk management
such as 'irrelevance'; the deliberate inattention of risk actors to risk. This
paper presents the results of a qualitative study of IT project managers,
investigating their reasons for deeming certain known risks to be irrelevant.
The results both confirm and expand on Smithson's [Smithson, M., 1989. Ignorance
and Uncertainty. Springer-Verlag, New York] taxonomy of ignorance and
uncertainty and in particular offer further context related insights into the
phenomenon of 'irrelevance' in project risk management. We suggest that coping
with 'irrelevance' requires defence mechanisms, the effective management of
relevance as well as the setting of, and sticking to priorities. (C) 2009
Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.
