Success in business depends on two broad management skills: 'doing the right thing' (choosing the right projects) and 'doing things right' (good project management). This book examines the challenges that managers face in assessing the likely risks and benefits that need to be taken into account when choosing projects. It then explores the strategic level risks that will need to be dealt with in managing those projects and suggests risk management strategies. In so doing, it makes a rare but important link between strategic level appraisal of project opportunities and project risk management. Many projects have similar characteristics that are common to a number of projects experienced by the same or other organizations. Elaine Harris shows how the use of a project typology can guide project risk management by identifying common risks shared by projects of each type. Her cutting edge research will help advanced project practitioners and researchers in projects and risk management to develop a risk management strategy that is better suited to the context of their projects and one that is flexible enough to develop and adapt once the project decision has been taken and the real-world of project management and delivery begins.


Elaine Harris is Professor and Head of Department of Accounting and Finance and Head of Leicester Business School’s Graduate Centre at De Montfort University, where she teaches Project Management. Elaine has been Chair of the British Accounting Association (BAA) Committee of Departments of Accounting and Finance (CDAF, formerly known as CHA), and secretary of the Management Control Associaion (MCA). She is a member of ACCA’s Research Committee, CIMA’s Lifelong Learning Policy Committee, Managing Editor of the Journal of Applied Accounting Research (JAAR) and a reviewer for the ESRC and Leverhulme.