DISSERTATION PROPOSAL FORM

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Name Name: David Momanyi
Course

Provisional Title of Your Dissertation

The Effectiveness of Risk Assessment at the Inception of the Project and How it Contributes to Project
Delivery

Describe the topic(s) or Issue (s) you wish to investigate for your dissertation.
These must relate to the subjects that comprise your programme of study, and must clearly indicate
what your aims objectives/ research questions will be.
Introduction
Risk assessment play a critical role in all the phases involved in project management from
project inception to project closure. Also called project initiation, project inception is the project’s
beginning and involves the exploration and elaboration of the concept or idea. It is the preliminary
stage of any project that seeks to explore the underlying reason(s) behind starting a particular
project, define the anticipated benefits of the project, and estimate the requisite time to complete
the project, solicit funds for carrying out the project, and define the implementation strategies
(Wuttke & Zandhuis, 2015). The inception phase in mainly aimed at examining the project’s feasibility.
Additionally, decisions regarding the project’s stakeholders are also made at this stage. It is during the
inception phase that all the necessary project parameters are defined while creating the relevant
management environment for managing a given project once it has been launched. Furthermore, the
inception phase’s primary goals are to achieve the consensus of all the key stakeholders from
regarding project objectives and funding. Some of the activities taking place at the inception stage
include project scope definition, schedule and cost estimation, risk definition, determination of
project feasibility, and preparation of project environment. Notably, the proposed research shall
focus on risk assessment. Considering the instrumental role of the inception phase in the project’s
lifecycle, it is critical to assess the potential risks and develop the necessary risk mitigation strategies.
It is noteworthy that the term “risk” has various definitions, some of which are based on objectives,
uncertainty, and expected values (Sotic & Rajik, 2015). This study adopts Lawrence’s (1976, cited in
Sotic & Rajik, 2015) definition a risk as “the measure of probability and the weight of undesired
outcomes” (p. 19). The proposed research adopts a qualitative exploratory approach to uncover the
efficacy of risk assessment during the project inception phase and its contribution to project delivery.

Statement of the Problem

Project inception plays an instrumental role in the project’s lifecycle as it defines the project’s
timescale, cost, scope, objectives, boundaries, and deliverables. It defines and clarifies the project’s
overall parameters to all the participants in the project. It also establishes the baseline for the
schedule, cost, and scope (Mirza, Pourzolfaghar, & Shahnazari, 2013). It identifies all the relevant
stakeholders to the particular project. Moreover, the inception state also defines all the items that
are included within the project’s scope and those that are not included. It also breaks the whole
project into small, manageable portions referred to as project deliverables. As such, it defines each of
the deliverables as well as the risks involved. Risks are largely inherent and inevitable in a given
project and these calls for proper risk assessment strategies in order to identify the potential risks,
document them, and prepare a comprehensive plan for risk prevention, reduction, and mitigation
strategies. However, little is known regarding the effectiveness of the risk assessment and
management strategies required at the inception phase. As such, there is a need for the research to
explore the efficacy of such strategies. Similarly, it is also critical to examine the significance of such
risk assessment and management strategies. Little is also know about the instrumental role of risk
management to the overall project delivery. Furthermore, it is also critical to take a critical look at the
role played by risk management at the inception stage to the project delivery.
Research Objectives/ Research Questions
The proposed following research objectives will inform the proposed study:
1. To identify and explore the some of the critical risk management strategies at the project’s
inception stage.
2. To uncover the significance of risk management during project inception.
3. To explore the effectiveness of risk management at the project’s inception phase.
4. To critically examine the contribution of risk management during project inception to project
delivery.
Some of the general research questions that will guide the researcher towards attaining the
aforementioned research objectives are:
1. What is project inception and how is it linked to the overall project lifecycle?
2. What are some of the risks inherent in the inception phase?
3. What are some of the risk management strategies that can be used at the inception phase?
4. What is the significance of risk management during the inception of the project?
5. How effective are the strategies used to manage risks during project inception?
6. What role does risk management at the inception stage play to the project delivery?

Significance of the Study

The study will be of great significance to the project managers, risk managers and students
undertaking courses related to project management. It will facilitate project managers to
acknowledge the critical role of project inception to the overall success of the planned project.
Specifically, the study will uncover the necessary risk management strategies during this phase and
their effectiveness, which will be beneficial to both risk managers and project managers. Given that
project scope definition occurs during the inception of the project, the use of effective risk
management strategies will facilitate such managers to prevent the possibility of scope creep. Farok
and Garcia (2016) defines scope creep as any change in the scope of the project, which could either
be an additional or update to the part of or the whole project. Some of the factors that contribute to
the occurrence of scope creep include lack of stakeholder and sponsor involvement, unrefined or
ambiguous scope definition, and the use of an inconsistent process for gathering the product
requirements (Larson & Larson, 2009). Project managers conceptualize scope creep as a risk and
hence the need to mitigate it through effective risk management strategies.
Methodology
The proposed study will adopt a qualitative research design to examine issues relating to the
research topic and research questions. Qualitative research tan takes multiple approaches, including a
neutralist, exploratory, descriptive, and interpretative approaches (Irene, 2014). The proposed
research, will take an exploratory research approach to the research topic. It is noteworthy that
qualitative studies endeavour to explore phenomena in their respective natural settings. Such studies
tries to interpret and make sense of a certain phenomenon with regard the way people construe it. A
qualitative research is mainly aimed at comprehending the cultures’ groups’ and individuals’ social
reality as it is constructed by the participants. A qualitative exploratory approach will facilitate the
researcher to uncover the “what,” “why,” and “how” relating to the subject matter. Particularly, it will
facilitate the research to unveil the efficacy of risk management at the project’s initiation phase and
its role in project delivery.
Additionally, the researcher will adopt interpretivism and social constructivism approaches.
Constructivists hold that reality is a social construction rather than a fixed phenomenon (Irene, 2014).
As such, reality is multiple, subjective, relative, and constructed. On the other hand, interpretivists
believe that a given subject matter can only be understood better through the subjective meaning
people assign to social actions in a specific social setting” (Ansari, Panhwar & Mahesar, 2016, p. 136).

What facts or information will you need to gather? How will you access these?
The proposed study will use the secondary sources to gather the relevant information
relating to the research topic. Some of the important secondary sources to be used include peer-
reviewed journal articles, official company websites, books, magazines, and newspapers. Such sources
will be sourced from the university library and other relevant online databases, including Google
Scholar and EbsCohost. Specific information of interest in the proposed research include: the
definition and importance of inception phase of project management; risk management strategies
employed during the initiation phase; effectiveness of such strategies, definition of project delivery;
and role of risk management on project delivery. The researcher will first log onto the relevant
website from which to gather the information from. Next, the researcher will use various search
words to find the relevant sources from the databases. Some of the critical search words would
include, project initiation, project delivery, risk management, risk management strategies,
effectiveness of risk management strategies, and role of risk management to project delivery. Having
obtained the secondary sources, the researcher will use inclusion criteria to identify the most
appropriate sources. The inclusion criteria focus on the relevance of the materials, date of
publication, qualification and expertise of the author (s), the authors’ institutional affiliations, and the
publishing organization. The researcher will exclude any secondary source that would not satisfy all
the inclusion criteria.

To which subject’s area(s) is this proposal, in your view, most strongly related?
This proposal is strongly related to the following subject areas

 Project management,
 Project lifecycle, and
 Risk management
 References
Ansari, S., Panhwar, A. H. & Mahesar, G. A. (2016). Mixed methods research: Ontological,
epistemological and methodological underpinnings. An International Research Journal of
Language and Literature, 27, 133-141.
Farok, G. M. G. & Garcia, J. A. (2016). Scope creep monitors level of satisfaction, cost of business, and
slippery slope relationships among stakeholders, project manager, sponsor, and PMO to execute
project completion report. Journal of The International Association of Advanced technology and
Science, 2(2), 15-23.
Irene, D. (2014). The ontological and epistemological foundations of qualitative and quantitative
approaches to research. International Journal of Economics, Commerce, and Management,
II(10), 1-17.
Larson, R. & Larson, E. (2009). Top five causes of scope creep … and what to do about them. Project
Management Institute. Retrieved on April 6, 2019 from
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/top-five-causes-scope-creep-6675
Mirza, M. N., Pourzolfaghar, Z. & Shahnazari, M. (2013). Significance of scope in project success.
Procedia Technology, 9, 722-729.
Sotic, A. & Rajik, R. (2015). The review of the definition of risk. Online Journal of Applied Knowledge
Management, 3(3), 17-26.
Wuttke, T. & Zandhuis, A. (2015). A Pocket Companion to PMI’s PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition. New York:
Van Haren.