Research Themes in Project Management
A theme is not a topic and a topic is not a question. This page takes the fourteen suggested areas one at a time and works out what a question you could actually finish inside each of them looks like.
The fourteen themes, and the sentence that comes with them
The list appears in the Week 3 material on developing a research topic. It is offered as an aid to a decision you are already making, not as a syllabus or a taxonomy of the discipline.
THE FOURTEEN THEMES AS THE SOURCE LISTS THEM
| # | Theme (source wording) | # | Theme (source wording) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leadership and soft skills | 8 | Hi-tech and bio-tech projects |
| 2 | Stakeholder management | 9 | Project costing and estimating |
| 3 | Virtual project management and teams | 10 | Project management in developing countries |
| 4 | Communications management | 11 | Project management education |
| 5 | Research and development projects | 12 | Applied project management |
| 6 | Risk management and practices | 13 | Managing transition from construction to operations |
| 7 | Global project and internationalisation | 14 | Asset management |
The numbering is the source's own order. Everything else on this page beyond these fourteen phrases is synthesis, and is marked as such.
Two of these are noticeably broader than the rest. "Applied project management" could absorb half the list, and "risk management and practices" spans everything from register hygiene to human judgement under uncertainty. Breadth at theme level is not a problem — it becomes one only if it survives into your topic.
From theme to question in three moves
None of the fourteen phrases is a research topic. Each is a shelf. The work is picking one item off the shelf, drawing a boundary around it, and turning what is inside the boundary into a question you can answer with the access and time you have.
- Theme
- Topic inside the theme
- Boundary — what is in and out
- Question in one sentence
- Purpose: describe, explain or evaluate
The source supports each of those moves elsewhere. It tells you to list all possible aspects of the topic and then list as many elements as you can in each aspect, cluster the elements into categories, and determine the aspect of most interest — that is the theme-to-topic move. It tells you to select a title that focuses the nature of the topic and illustrates its boundaries — that is the boundary move. And it tells you to state the research question in one sentence. The mechanics are set out in Narrowing and Scoping a Research Topic.
The last move is the one most often skipped. The source names three purposes a study can have — descriptive, explanatory and evaluative — and the same topic yields a different project under each. Fix the purpose before you go looking for methods; see Descriptive, Explanatory and Evaluative Research.
What a finishable question looks like inside each theme
The question shapes below are illustrations written for this page. They are not in the supplied source, which gives the theme names only. Each is scaled to a part-time master's project: one setting, one population you can reach, one purpose.
THEMES 1-7 — ILLUSTRATIVE QUESTION SHAPES
| Theme | A question shape that would fit inside it | Likely purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Leadership and soft skills | Which behaviours do project team members in one organisation identify as affecting whether they raise bad news early, and at what point in the reporting cycle? | Descriptive |
| 2. Stakeholder management | How is stakeholder influence assessed at gate reviews in one delivery organisation, and what evidence is actually placed in front of the decision-makers? | Descriptive |
| 3. Virtual project management and teams | What do project managers who have moved a team from co-located to distributed working report changing in their coordination routines, and what did they abandon? | Explanatory |
| 4. Communications management | Which parts of the standard project report do sponsors in one portfolio read, and what decisions do they say those parts inform? | Evaluative |
| 5. Research and development projects | How are stage decisions made on development projects where the deliverable is not defined at approval, and what stands in for a baseline? | Explanatory |
| 6. Risk management and practices | On what basis do project managers in one sector decide that an identified risk is escalated rather than held, and how consistent is that basis between them? | Descriptive |
| 7. Global project and internationalisation | What do delivery leads on cross-border projects identify as the causes of schedule loss at handover between country teams? | Explanatory |
Illustrative shapes, written for this page. Not source content.
THEMES 8-14 — ILLUSTRATIVE QUESTION SHAPES
| Theme | A question shape that would fit inside it | Likely purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 8. Hi-tech and bio-tech projects | How is requirements change controlled on projects where the underlying technology matures during delivery, and what triggers a re-baseline? | Descriptive |
| 9. Project costing and estimating | What estimating basis is recorded at approval across a set of completed projects in one organisation, and how does the recorded basis relate to outturn variance? | Explanatory |
| 10. Project management in developing countries | What do practitioners delivering donor-funded work identify as the differences between the reporting the funder requires and the reporting the delivery team uses? | Descriptive |
| 11. Project management education | Which elements of a project management qualification do practitioners report having used in the two years after completing it, and which they have not? | Evaluative |
| 12. Applied project management | Which tools set out in one organisation's project methodology are actually used, by whom, and what do practitioners use instead of the ones they skip? | Descriptive |
| 13. Managing transition from construction to operations | What is handed over at practical completion on one asset, and what does the receiving operations team identify as missing in the first six months? | Descriptive |
| 14. Asset management | How is asset condition and configuration data captured during delivery, and does it arrive in a form the operating asset register can accept without rework? | Evaluative |
Illustrative shapes, written for this page. Not source content.
Which themes the exemplar volume shows are researchable
The strongest available evidence that a theme carries finishable master's-level questions is that someone has finished one. The exemplar volume — a published collection of seventeen master's degree research projects in project management — provides seventeen such demonstrations, and its designs are set out in full on Seventeen Worked Research Designs in Project Management.
The mapping below is a reading of the published abstracts against the source's fourteen themes. Neither the volume nor the teaching source performs this mapping; the two documents are unrelated to each other. Treat it as an aid to orientation, not a classification.
THEMES AGAINST THE SEVENTEEN PUBLISHED DESIGNS
| Theme | Designs that land in it | Strength of the landing |
|---|---|---|
| Leadership and soft skills | Study 4, the human side of project management; Study 17, the bottom-up account of a continuous improvement programme | Adjacent — both are about people rather than about leadership as such |
| Stakeholder management | Study 12, infrastructure delivery in a remote region, which draws its data from core project team members | Adjacent |
| Virtual project management and teams | Study 8, use of mobile technology by project managers | Adjacent — tools for distributed work, not team structure |
| Communications management | Study 8 again | Adjacent |
| Research and development projects | None | No instance in this volume |
| Risk management and practices | Study 4, psychology in project risk management; Study 6, procurement practices and project risk; Study 10, risk management practices in defence SMEs; Study 12, which scores identified challenges as risks | Squarely — the best-evidenced theme on the list |
| Global project and internationalisation | None | No instance in this volume |
| Hi-tech and bio-tech projects | None | No instance in this volume |
| Project costing and estimating | Study 15, modular construction on LNG megaprojects, which examines known causes of overruns | Adjacent |
| Project management in developing countries | None | No instance in this volume |
| Project management education | Study 1, integrating younger practitioners into the profession | Adjacent — professional development rather than education |
| Applied project management | Study 2, inter-generational differences in tools and techniques; Study 7, agile principles in brownfield mining; Study 8, mobile technology; Study 11, project management in the arts; Study 13, integrated project delivery | Squarely — the broadest theme absorbs the most designs |
| Managing transition from construction to operations | None | No instance in this volume |
| Asset management | None | No instance in this volume |
A reading of published abstracts, made for this page. Neither source classifies the studies this way.
Read the empty rows carefully. "No instance in this volume" is not evidence that a theme is unresearchable — it is one collection of seventeen studies. It does tell you that you will have fewer close structural precedents, so budget more time for finding methodological models in the wider literature.
The source's caveat, tested against the same evidence
The caveat that the list "is by no means exclusive" is not throat-clearing. The exemplar volume demonstrates it directly.
On the reading above, at least five of the seventeen published designs address subjects that do not sit on the fourteen-item list at all: knowledge management in a project environment, control-theory modelling of project performance, maturity establishment and benchmarking, and two studies of process and continuous improvement. All five were completed, examined and published.
Choosing between themes on resourcing, not just interest
Interest matters — the source is blunt that a topic you are not interested in will be a real slog. But interest is not sufficient. Three of the source's own screening considerations bear directly on which theme you can afford to work in.
Screening a theme before you commit to it
The four practical considerations behind the first three rules — time, ethical constraints, cooperation and cost — are set out in Assessing Research Topic Feasibility. The source warns that failure to consider any of them can mean disaster later.
Working the list rather than reading it
The list has one use beyond browsing: it is a ready-made set of prompts for the brainstorming step the source describes. Run it as an exercise, not a menu.
A one-hour pass through the fourteen
Score each theme against your access, not your interest
For each of the fourteen, write the name of one organisation, register or group of people you could realistically reach. Themes where that cell stays empty drop out immediately.
For each surviving theme, list the elements inside it
This is the source's own instruction: list all possible aspects of the topic, then list as many elements as you can think of in each aspect. Aim for volume, not quality.
Cluster the elements and pick the aspect that interests you most
Also the source's instruction. Interest is the tie-breaker here, applied after access has already filtered the field.
Draft a working title that shows the boundary
The source asks for a title that focuses the nature of the topic and illustrates its boundaries, and that includes your main interest. If the title does not say what is excluded, the boundary is not yet drawn.
Test the literature before you fall in love with it
Who has written on it, when, where and what. Journal articles are the signal the source values most, because they show the topic has been developed theoretically. See Step 1: Generating and Refining a Research Idea.
Write the question in one sentence and stop
If it takes two sentences, the boundary is still wrong. Take the second sentence out and see whether the first still describes a study.
The themes are one input among several. The supplied source also derives topics from practical problems observed in the field, from the literature, from published requests for proposals and from the researcher's own thinking — see Where Research Topics Come From. A theme that survives your access screen and matches a problem you have actually watched go wrong is the strongest starting position available.
What to carry forward
- The source gives fourteen theme names and nothing else — no definitions, no examples, no ranking. Everything beyond the names is your work or someone else's.
- The list is explicitly not exclusive, and the exemplar volume proves it: at least five of its seventeen published designs sit outside all fourteen themes.
- Risk management and applied project management are the best-evidenced themes in the volume; several themes have no instance in it at all.
- Move from theme to topic to boundary to a one-sentence question. A theme taken into a proposal unchanged is the source's "too big a project".
- Screen themes on access, cooperation, cost, ethics and literature depth before you screen them on interest.
- Working inside your own organisation solves access and creates exposure to selective observation. Build the safeguards in at design time.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to choose one of the fourteen themes?
No. The source states the list is by no means exclusive, and adds that the suggestions may not be appropriate if you are studying research practice outside project management. The list is a prompt for someone deciding on a topic, not a permitted set. The exemplar volume includes several published studies whose subjects are not on the list.
Which theme is easiest for a part-time master's project?
The source does not rank them and neither should you rank them in the abstract. The practical determinant is access: the theme where you can name a population, a register or a set of documents you could reach within your timeframe is the easiest for you. Themes requiring travel, cross-border cooperation or entry to organisations you have no relationship with are the hardest to resource.
How do I turn a theme into a research question?
Four moves. Pick one topic inside the theme, draw a boundary that says what is excluded as well as what is included, decide whether the study describes, explains or evaluates, and then state the question in one sentence. The source's brainstorming instruction supports the first two: list all the aspects of the topic, list elements in each aspect, cluster them, and choose the aspect of most interest.
Does a theme with no study in the exemplar volume mean it is a bad choice?
No. The volume is one collection of seventeen studies and is not a survey of the field. An empty row tells you that you will have fewer close structural precedents to imitate, so allow more time to find methodological models in the wider journal literature. The source's real warning is about a thin literature on your specific topic, not a thin showing in one book.
Can I combine two themes?
Nothing in the source prevents it, and several published designs sit across two — a study of procurement practices and project risk touches both risk and applied practice. Combining widens the literature you must review and the population you must reach, so make sure the combination narrows the question rather than doubling it.
Should I pick a theme from inside my own organisation?
It solves the two hardest constraints, access and cooperation, and the subject's applied requirement asks you to relate the material to your organisation and your role. The cost is exposure to the distortions the source names for observational work: selective observation and biased interviews. Decide in advance what evidence would change your mind, and record it.
References and source attribution
- The supplied teaching source: week 3 teaching notes and slide material on developing a research topic, which carries the fourteen suggested themes and the caveat accompanying them.
- Trochim, W. M. K. 2006, Research Methods Knowledge Base — the excerpt reproduced in the supplied source on where research ideas come from and whether a study is feasible.
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge (the supplied source's week 3 reading on topic selection, pp. 9–11).
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- An edited volume of master's degree research projects in project management, 2018, academic publisher, 378 pp. — the exemplar volume; the seventeen designs are paraphrased from published abstracts and mapped to the themes for this page only.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Take my theme and help me narrow it to a one-sentence research question with a named population.
- Which of the fourteen themes best fits a study I could run inside my own delivery organisation?
- Show me which published designs in the exemplar volume are closest to the theme I have chosen.
- Screen my chosen theme against the source's feasibility considerations: time, ethics, cooperation and cost.
- My topic is not on the fourteen-theme list — what do I need to demonstrate instead?