When Prudence is Reckless: Rethinking the Role of Project Risk Management

In the twentieth century project management emerged as an organisational innovation to better handle a burgeoning increase in non-routine activity. Project managers founded their practice on mathematical planning algorithms such as PERT and CPM, made feasible by developments in operations research and computer technology. But the results of such efforts are often underwhelming. Do project risk management practices somehow miss the point? This book uses a critical management studies framework to explore project risk management. The approach of the Project Management Institutes Project Management Body of Knowledge is compared to the very different approach of a professional project manager. An analysis of these approaches from a critical management studies perspective finds that they employ the logic of different knowledge-constitutive interests. This analysis reveals a fundamental dimension of project risk management that is routinely neglected in both practitioner and academic literature.