**1. Introduction**

The last decade showed an industrial engineering growth toward nontraditional industries, particularly information technology (IT) and service-related industries that add considering technical, organizational, ethical, social, legal, and economic factors to the project management process [1–6]. Moreover, Industrial engineering is known for creating new systems to solve problems related to waste and inefficiency [3].

Project management is a critical area of knowledge in the Industrial engineering curriculum around the world [7]. An increasing number of private and public organizations start adopting formal principles of project management to develop and deliver new or improved products, services, and organizational process changes [8]. Further, many researchers investigate ways to develop and enhance the organization's management practice [9].

The current studies of the project management process focus strongly on project risk management [10]. The current focus toward integration between partners, lean production, and outsourcing within industrial engineering has led to increase uncertainties and spike the number of accidents in the industry [11]. Consequently, organizations are giving more attention and value to risk management for improving project efficiency and effectiveness [12]. In [13–16], risk management was described as a continuous process that supports the completion of the project on time, within budget, to the required quality, and with proper provision for the safety and environmental standards.

The relationship between risk management and project success or failure has been studied extensively in the last decades [10, 12, 14, 17–20]. However, the risk management process shows a wide gap between theory and practice [21, 22]. The theory focuses on learning the techniques, planning methods, and formalities of project management while unintentionally overlook the nontraditional soft approach of management [2, 3, 22–24].

Effective project risk management obliges a wide-ranging involvement and integration across all segments of the project teams and their environment [25]. The results of previous studies that focused on risk management impact on the project success show that there are contradictions in the findings [10]. This contradiction can be explained by the tendency of the researchers to neglect aspects of uncertainty management such as considering the soft side of project management and its impact on the overall performance [10, 22].

The project management process can be categorized into hard and soft sides/ approaches/skills [22, 26–31]. The hard skills focus on applying tools and techniques within project management and usually described as a science and comprise processes [26]. On the other hand, the soft skills are largely intangible, not associated with a deliverable or a concrete output, and enable working through and with people along with handling the associated human factors [22, 30].

The distinction between the concept of risk and uncertainty is still not fully clear in the context of project management [10, 32, 33]. In [34] the uncertainty was classified according to the project management techniques related to it into variation, foreseen uncertainty, unforeseen uncertainty, and chaos. Consequently, the management approach must be generated according to the types of uncertainties [10, 32, 34, 35]. In [10], it was suggested that the hard side of risk management covers the part that can manage variation and foreseen uncertainties while unforeseen uncertainties and chaos need other skills that related to the soft side.

The mere existence of accepted principles, well-defined processes, and widespread practice is not sufficient to guarantee success [24]. The hard skills just started to be viewed by many organizations more as baseline competencies rather than an additional practice that needed to improve the management process [27]. Moreover, the hard side should be considered as a necessity for the survival of the organization but not a sufficient tool in managing project risks [32]. Consequently, effective project management needs a balance between hard and soft skills [2, 28, 30].

Effective project risk management can be achieved depending on the involvement of the project team in the management process, which required a good understanding of the team environment [16]. Hence, the last decade presented a competitive global market creating a changing work environment that demands engineers who possess soft skills [36]. Further, the current risk management practices require investing more time and effort on the soft skills in order to advance the risk management process [10, 22, 24, 28, 37, 38].

This study aims to create a deeper understanding of the project risk management process by exploring the literate to investigate the potentials of integrating the hard and soft sides of risk project management. In addition, propose a broader

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**Table 1.**

*The distribution of the literature based on its source.*

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

conceptual framework for assessing and enhancing the project risk management process by including comprehensive risk management tools and techniques adopted

This review covers academic publications based on theoretical and empirical findings on the concept of Risk Management. Literature was obtained through electronic searching strategy from major databases available to the researchers. The database used for this research includes but not limited to Web of Science, Science Direct, and Scopus. In other words, the database offers extensive studies on the risk project management process. However, relatively few studies were to be found concentrating on the soft skills acclimation and integration during the risk

The initial search was broad enough to allow for as many results as possible including words that could identify as part of the risk management process. English was chosen to be the medium of communication. Therefore, publications that are not written in English were excluded. Moreover, this research focuses on the current research studies, studies that were published after 2005, unless if specific research offers a unique point of view or valuable contribution. **Table 1** shows the distribution of the literature, which were included in this research, based on its sources of publications. Finally, qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the review findings. The qualitative method presents a broad narrative of the findings from the literature, while the quantitative method was used in presenting the findings with

**Literature source Frequency** International Journal of Project Management 9 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. IEEE 4 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4 Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 3 Risk Management 2 Safety Science 2 Project Management Journal 2 Informing Science & Information Technology 2 Scientia Iranica 2 Engineering Management Journal 1 European Journal of Engineering Education 1 European Journal of Industrial Engineering 1 PMI Global Congress EMEA Proceedings 1 Association for Project Management (APM) 1 International Conference on Industrial Engineering Theory 1 International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management (IJIEM) 1 Project Management Institute 1 Others 45

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

from both sides.

**2. Methods**

management process.

tables and figures.

conceptual framework for assessing and enhancing the project risk management process by including comprehensive risk management tools and techniques adopted from both sides.
