From risk management to uncertainty management: a significant change in project management

Starting with the meanings of the terms “risk” and “uncertainty,””he paper compares uncertainty management with risk management in project management. We bring some doubt to the use of “risk” and “uncertainty” interchangeably in project management and deem their scope, methods, responses, monitoring and controlling should be different too. Illustrations are given covering terminology, description, and treatment from different perspectives of uncertainty management and risk management. Furthermore, the paper retains that project risk management (PRM) processes might be modified to facilitate an uncertainty management perspective, and we support that project uncertainty management (PUM) can enlarge its contribution to improving project management performance, which will result in a significant change in emphasis compared with most risk management.