**5. Conclusion**

In the last decades, scholars argued for the need of combining the hard and soft skills of management [22]. Consequently, tools and practices that encourage the hard side of management are necessary, but they need to be supplemented with leadership and soft skills. Since effective project risk management requires broad involvement and collaboration across all segments of the project team and its environment [10]. A deeper understanding of the soft side of risk management can open up a wide range of opportunities for scholars and practitioners interested in improving the risk process around the world. Therefore, the conceptual framework presented in this study provides a guide to facilitate integrating the hard and soft sides of risk management.

The majority of the literature support that the soft side has an impact on project success. Further, a significant relationship between the hard and soft sides is recognized in several fields. This relation influences the implementation of the risk management process throughout the project life-cycle. However, even that several studies consider the soft skills as requisites for success, some still disagree with the fact that these skills can be taught, learned, or managed and advocate that these skills are innate or genetic [28]. This study provides a way to assess and describe some of these skills and provides tools and techniques to influence and manage them.

Finally, focusing on the suggested three process groups helps scholars and practitioners to better understand the soft side concept of risk management and pave the way for improving the risk management process itself. In conclusion, the soft side of risk management is a viable concept within risk and uncertainty management studies, which is yet to be fully explored. In addition, integrating the soft and hard skills offer a broader risk management process that ensures more efficient results. Consequently, there is a need for more in-depth research that goes beyond documentation of meanings and activities regarding the soft side of risk management to the documentation of the process that integrates the hard and soft sides and monitors the progress resulted in implementing the integration.

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**Author details**

Muhammad T. Hatamleh

The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: mthatamleh@crimson.ua.edu

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Exploring the Project Risk Management: Highlighting the Soft Side of Project Management*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93501*

*Exploring the Project Risk Management: Highlighting the Soft Side of Project Management DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93501*
