Risk Management And Project Life Cycle Management Essay

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As presented in the methodology aspect of this report, the best suitable research
technique to be used for study is the questionnaire technique, case study approach
and Correlation study. However, a sequential approach for carrying out this
triangular research approach which involves combination of research techniques is
as presented below; with numbers ranging from one to four, indicating the sequence
to be followed.

4.1 Data collection by questionnaire

Having identified some risks associated to construction projects in the literature
review aspect of this report, the questionnaire risk identification method which
conforms to the information gathering process of risk identification will be
constructed in a closed ended format. The purpose of the questionnaire is to seeks
and confirm the key risks associated to the Nigeria construction projects and its
stakeholders based on their awareness/competency to risk and risk management.
The questions to be asked is as attached in the appendix and, each question will be
forwarded via e-mail to key internal project stakeholders of the Nigeria construction
project. However, the purpose of the questionnaire is not only to seek answers which
will provide the level of risks being faced by the country's construction project sector,
but also, the answers to be collated will further be assessed to verify to level of
competence and awareness of each and all the stakeholders on the subject risk and
all it entails.

4.2 Sampling strategy

Sampling refers to the having a representative (a) from an overall large population
(A). In other words, (a) data collected will be used as a judgement of same overall
population (A). However, in the context of this report, the population under study is
the construction project sector of Nigeria but will be firmly represented by the term
'construction companies'.

The strategy to be used for sampling will be chosen from the diagram below which
was an explanation given by Kumar(2008)
Fig 13: Sampling strategies
The diagram above shows that sampling strategy can either be a probability sample
type or, non-probability type of which both can on the other hand be unrestricted or
restricted sampling. However, the sampling strategy to apply in this research will be
the unrestricted random sampling approach. Here, each of the questionnaires will be
sent via e-mail to each key construction companies stakeholders (the project
manager, client, contractor/semi-contractors, suppliers, designers and project team
member(s)) after an initial mail contact to inform them of the questionnaire which
will be sent. Also, it is anticipated that the random sampling of the overall population
will be similar to the format diagrammatically represented below.
Fig 14: Sketch map of Nigeria indicating anticipated sampled regions

4.3 Anticipated answers to the questionnaire

questions
The questionnaires put forward is expected to be scored based on the answers shown
in the table below.

Questions (Rephrased)
Anticipated answer
Acceptable Score
1)
Respondents level of knowledge in risk management
In is expected that all the project stakeholders has in-depth knowledge of the term
risk and risk management. This will show weather the project stakeholders are highly
competent in managing a project to meeting its specification without overruns.
Therefore, an appropriate answer to this question should be "5" or manageably "4"
which will indicate that the project stakeholders are highly knowledgeable on risk
management hence, can handle their project responsibilities with minimal errors.

Your awareness to the safety laws and regulations regarding your project activities
All legislations guiding a project (e.g. Health and Safety regulations) should be
understood by all the project stakeholders. This will server as a push to for them to
effectively handle their project with legal consciousness.
The preferred answer to this question should be "5" or "4" which indicates that the
project stakeholders are aware of the laws guiding the project working environment.
What is the level of your satisfaction to the management of risk in your company?
It is important that majority of the project stakeholders are satisfied with the level of
risk management practiced by the company they work. This is due to the fact that
most of the stakeholders might just be "follow the crowd" person hence, cannot
express their feelings.
The anticipated answer for this question should be "5" or "4" which implies that the
risk management practiced by the company is acceptable and profitable to the
stakeholders hence, helps in carrying their working activities effectively.
This is an avenue for each stakeholder to access the risk management competency of
their company.
However, an effective management of risks in a company will allow projects to be
carried out successfully.
4) If risk management is carried out though out the project life cycle
Risk management is expected to be carried out throughout a project life cycle (0n the
concept, Definition, implementation and handover phase) (APM, 2006).
This is to ensure that risks to each project activities are proactively identified prior to
and during the project phases. However, in the situation where the risk is not well
identified and treated in the concept and definition phase of the project (which is
majorly the responsibility of the project manager and the project client), the project
might result to failure in terms of cost, time overrun as well as poor quality delivery.
Therefore, the answer for this question ought be "5" or manageably "4" which will
show that risk in the Nigeria construction projects are effectively managed.
5) Who is responsible for identifying and managing project risk?

According to Knapp(2006), it is the responsibility of all the project team to identify

all project risks. This report will further point that it is the responsibility of the all
project stakeholders to effectively identify all risks to a project.
During the project phases, the project team are expected to identify and report any
risks on a project to the project manager. While the project manager collate and
managing all the identified risks from the project and each stakeholders. But, all the
risks and issues which cannot be managed by the project manager should be put
forward and handled by the project client.

Therefore, a high number response ("5" or "4") will indicate that the all the
stakeholders share the responsibility of risk identification.
6) If the organisation deal of proactive risk identification and management
Therefore, a high number response ("5" or "4") will indicate that the all the
stakeholders share the responsibility of risk identification. However, proactive risk
identification helps in effective management or risks
The answer for this question would be "5"; which means the organisation/company
deals of proactive risk management.
7) What is your attitude to risk?
A Persons attitude to risk can either be risk taker, risk averse or risk neutral.
According to Zelkowitz (1997), risk takers accept risks even if the risk is not
favourable While risk averse is reverse of risk takers; they take risk only if the odds
are favourable. But risk neutrals are intermediate; can change their current level of
risk acceptance depending if its no more favourable.
The stakeholders are expected to tick "3" indicating they are risk takers hence,
matured enough (if fully trained) to handle their project activities. "2" (neutral)
implies they are not well trained on risk management;
"1"(risk averse) implies they are not competent/matured to carry out their project
activities.

Risk averse people embarking on project without proper training, are themselves
sources of project risks.
8) Which is a key driver to project delivery: (Project delivery on cost, time, quality,
and meeting customer expectation)
This question seeks to identify the key driver(s) in a construction project. However,
all of the above should be drivers in delivering a project. But, the key priority should
be delivering the project on quality specification to meet the customer's request.
Also, it is the responsibility of the project manager to adequately manage the project
not to exceed budget (cost) with a key focus of delivering the project on schedule.
Hence, the anticipated answer to this question would be all of the above drivers.
At lease one driver
9) Adopted risk response strategy : Risk avoidance, transfer, elimination, reduction,
or acceptance)
For this question, there is no definite answer but it is up to the choice company as
well as its risk management capability. Some organisations are risk averse while
some are risk takers.
Risk averse organisations are expected to choose the Risk transfer and avoidance.
This indirectly indicates that the company are not effectively capable of handling
majority of project risks hence, involving a third party to share the risk with.
On the other hand, risk taking organisations are prepared to accept, reduce or
eliminate risks to a project. this demonstrates the high capability of the company to
handling risk.
Depends on the risk management capability of the construction company
10) Prior to commencing of any project activity, are you always very clear of the
project aim and objective?
The answer to this question should be "yes"; indicating that the project stakeholders
understand the point of direction/expected deliverables which the project seeks to
achieve.
The acceptable score for this question is "1"(yes) from each respondents

11) Is there an audit committee in your company?

The answer to this question should be "yes".
Score number "1" from each respondents.
12) Does the audit committee audit your company's risk management process?
The answer should be "yes" and nothing less.
Risk audits committee are expected to carry out risk auditing on each project mile
stone and at project completion.
Anticipated answer should be "yes"(1) from each respondents
13) Do you or your organisation have a risk register, checklist or document used for
risk records?
This question is asked due to the fact that most project stakeholders are ill aware of
the need to record risk.
The answer to this question should be 'yes' indicating that the organisation keeps
appropriate record of all project risks.
14) The name of the document used to record risk
This question is asked to assess if the project stakeholders are conversant with risk
recording and procedures. Though, not all the project stakeholders are responsible
for recording risk but, all risk identified in a project by any identification method
should be recorded in a risk register and, assessed based on the already available risk
checklist.
The stakeholders should be able to give at lease a name of any document used in risk
management.

Table 15: Anticipated answer to the questionnaire questions

In summary, questions will be sent via a soft ware called "survey monkey" and the
data analysis will be carried out by same software. However, the accumulated score
from each stakeholder's response should be : Maximum score of '50' , and not less

that '36' from questions one to nine and , the acceptable answer from question ten to
fourteen should not be greater that '4'

4.4 Correlation study

The correlation research approach will be the final approach to the researching. Its
application will be based on the findings from feedback about the competency of the
Nigeria stakeholders on risk management based on the questionnaire disseminated
and, findings from the case study of a UK Construction Company discussed
previously.
However, the results from the two regions will be checked and the gaps drawn out. It
is anticipated that the concept of risk management is well understood by the UK
construction companies based on the country being among the list of developed
countries influenced by good construction and risk management practice as revealed
on the case study. With Nigeria among the underdeveloped country, its construction
practices should be benchmarked based on the studied best practice (Balfour Beatty
construction company, UK.) . Hence, the lag on the approach to risk management in
Nigeria can be drawn out.

4.5 Limitations
The major constrains that will be associated to this research is that, it is forecasted
that the questionnaires sent out to respondents might be given few attention in terms
of feed back (i.e. low few back). This would be as a result of few respondents' access
to the internet or lack of want to fill in the forms due to individual reasons.

4.6 Contingency plan

Based on the limitations discussed above, the questionnaires will be sent in large
amount. This will allow reasonable feedback to be received; low response not
withstanding as this will be compensated with the high amount of disseminated
forms

4.7 Anticipated budget

Due to the high anticipated questionnaires to be sent out, coupled with other
expenses, the allocated budget for this whole process will be dependent of the cost of
carrying out the whole process by the picked-up primary research participants.

4.8 Ethical consideration

The major ethical consideration for the research lies in the fact that most of the
emails where the questionnaires will be sent to might be general company's email
address hence, a few lines introduction will be written to accompany the
questionnaire giving introduction of the researcher's name, school, purpose of the
research. This information will aid in beckoning for proper attentions from the
respondents.

CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Conclusion
This report has been successful by it identifying the main risks and causes of project
failures that Nigeria construction project stakeholders contribute to project
deliveries. This was narrowed down to three main objectives: identifying the
prevailing risks which the Nigeria internal construction project stakeholders
contributes to project which has made projects not to be completed on time, cost and
quality specified by the project need. The other objective of this project was to give a
proposal for verifying the credibility of the identified risks and causes of project
failures in the Nigeria construction project sector. The final objective is to give a
recommendation on how to effectively manage the identified risk which this report
brings out.
The main rational for this report was due to the fact that the country (Nigeria) is
being ranked among under-developed/developing country despite huge investment
to the construction project sector and now, a strategy has been proposed by the
country of becoming one of the twenty most developed country by the year 2020.
Also, this report sees that the rate of project risk caused by the project stakeholder
are more at the execution phase of the project life cycle where the build up process
requires more project team/personnel to carryout the building process.
However, this report has further explored and identified the causes of project failures
and the non-delivery of project on time, cost and quality specifications in the past.
The main causes are that: the project stakeholders have poor capability/ awareness
to risk management process. Other findings revealed that there is no drive for
sustainable construction practice in the country in the sense that, the stakeholders
are more interested in delivering of the projects on time (money conscious) with out
concern on the sustainable life span of completed structures or delivered projects.

This report views this above points to be the main causes of project failures and poor
development of the country in general.
A case study of a UK (United Kingdom) construction company (Balfour beatty
construction company) revealed that the company is been named among the best UK
construction company due to its primary focus on effective risk management process
which has been made part and parcel of each of the project stakeholders hence,
projects are not just completed on time, cost and quality but, all the completed
projects has long sustainable life span; contributing to the development of UK.
Therefore, to verify the credibility of the risks/problems associated with the project
stakeholders, a proposal for questionnaires by primary researcher(s) has been
documented with focus of identifying the maturity state of the Nigeria construction
stakeholders in terms on risk management and risk management process.

5.1 Recommendation
With a good step taken by the country of coming out with a driving strategy/ vision
statement of becoming among the twenty most developed nations in the world, it is
therefore recommended that: the government of Nigeria brings out some strict laws
to which all the project stakeholders needs to adhere strictly to. The laws and
regulations will be in terms of high competency of the project team/stakeholders on
the knowledge and principles of risk management before embarking on any project.
These laws should be enforceable and punishable when broken.
Also project managers has the responsibility of making sure that all persons which
will take part in any construction activity needs to be trained and retrained on the
responsibilities on the job as well as risk and risk management.
Finally , for a correlation analysis to be carried out between Nigeria and the United
Kingdom in terms of risk management of project stakeholders, questionnaires which
will be answered by the Nigeria construction stakeholders has been prepared and be
sent via a computer software called survey monkey. The feedback received should not
only be used to assess the maturity of the stakeholders in terms of risk management
competency but, also for plans to be made on how the country will achieve or exceed
the developmental state of the United Kingdom.