Exploration of Risk Management Process Usage Levels and Their Relationship to Project Outcomes

Project management processes such as risk management are used in many organizations however; research shows risk management is the least mature of all project management knowledge areas. This is important because poor risk management is one of many challenges on IS/IT projects that can lead to failure. The goal of this paper is to determine if the level of actual risk management process usage is important to successful project outcomes. A research study was conducted which surveyed over 550 project management practitioners about risk management on their own virtual IS/IT project. Survey responses were analyzed and a correlation analysis was conducted to determine if a relationship existed between risk management process usage and project outcome. The results indicated there was a definite relationship and specifically the “high usage” level of risk management processes is important to successful project outcomes while other lower levels are not as important.