Congruence between risk management theory and practice in Hong Kong vendor-driven IT projects

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study comparing risk management practice of project managers from Hong Kong IT vendor firms, with theoretical prescriptions. Prescriptions and practice were closely aligned at pre-sales stages, but there was substantial variation during project implementation. The hand-over from pre-sales to implementation teams was often a weak link, with project managers failing to follow-up risk management plans prepared at pre-sales stage. In particular, gaps in the management of contingencies added to schedule and budget to address specific risks suggest that firms may not be fully benefiting from the contingency planning prepared at pre-sales stage. The importance of ensuring that risk assessors at pre-sales stage were independent of the implementation team was highlighted, but it was noted that this practice might compound the problem of ensuring on-going risk monitoring by removing the implementation manager's sense of ownership of the risk management plan.