Risk management in Megaproject : a lesson from scottish parliamnet building project

Abstract: There are quite a number of researches on the risk management review in public projects especially so called megaprojects, public project with high investment. Such effort, however, usually tends to offer the lessons in certain condition rather than generalize to others. Our research aims to bridge the gap by exploring the relation between the public feature of Megaproject and its risk management policy option. Under the project risk management framework, the case study of Scottish Parliament Building project focuses on the stakeholder intervenes during the whole process. In the analysis, the risks are first outlined according to the report ex post, then we go back to examine the risk assessment and risk control policy during the project to identify the reasons leading to the deviation. The finding demonstrates the politics intervene has generated high transaction cost for project manager to implement risk reduction and mitigation policy, and the optimum way under such condition to accept or avoid the risks at all, but not handle them. Accordingly, the thesis suggests that the appropriate risk transfer and contingency allowance will be the key success factors in the megaproject.