A very short guide to developing a brilliant

MSc Project Management

dissertation research topic

Introduction

Your topic must meet the needs of the MSc Project Management programme
specification, you will find a copy on the programme space on SunSpace.

Therefore, your topic must be about an area of project management or an area of

managing a project. This still gives you a great deal of scope for your dissertation
topic as you will see further on in this guide.

Your research proposal

Your research proposal must be explicitly linked to project management or an aspect

of project management.

When trying to identify a potential research topic you need to think of several things.

How does the proposed research relate to the current recent literature and why does
the research need to be done.

Who will benefit from the research?

Then from the literature or even the lack of literature what are the hypotheses or
research questions to be investigated

Once you have done the above you will be able to develop your dissertation TOR and
objectives.

Note:
If there is a lack of literature then it may be hard to devise meaningful hypotheses or
research questions and therefore focus groups or similar may need to be used to
devise the hypotheses or research questions.

All this means that you need to do some work to arrive at an appropriate research
proposal.

Ian Ridley
February 2015
page 1 of 3
Past brilliant MSc Project Management topics

Below are the titles of several past dissertations. As you will see the titles are vary
wide and varied. I would suggest that you look on line to identify currently trending
topics within project management to help you identify an appropriate area of research
for your dissertation.

Agile Project Management Framework For E-Business Projects Utilising DSDM

Managing Project Execution After The Occurrence Of Natural Disaster: Adjustments

In Best Practice and Planning For Similar Project In The Future

A framework to identify and manage risk for the design of engineered to order
prototype gearbox projects for xxxxxx Ltd

An investigation Into How The Use Of Web 2.0 Social Networking And Multimedia
Sharing Technologies Can Improve Project Management In A Creative Organization.

Organising And Motivating To Form Effective Team Communication In Projects

Improving Project Performance With Better Subcontracting Systems In Mainland

China

Managing Transient Teams within IT Network and Infrastructure Projects

Discussion Of The Inhibiting Factors And Mitigation Addressed In The Cost Control
Of The Construction Projects

How Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Could be Applied as a Formal Framework

in the Department of xxxxxxx and xxxxxxx for Efficient Monitoring of Multiple
Projects.

From the above it can be seen that the topic areas available are very wide. It should
also be realised that the above is just a small example of the topic areas that you can
research for your dissertation.

Ian Ridley
February 2015
page 2 of 3
Past proposal topics which were not acceptable

Below are several past proposal topics that were not acceptable. As you will note
none of them as written have a connection to project management.

Developing management systems for xxxxxxx Ltd

An investigation into the developing efficiencies in staff recruitment.

How xxxxx Ltd uses risk management and how this can be improved

Developing better communication within the manufacturing department of xxxxx Ltd

Developing a financial strategy for xxxxx Ltd

An assessment of patient care by xxxxx health services and how these can be
improved in an economic manner

Health services within SME’s

Improving procurement methods to ensure just in time delivery in flow line

manufacturing,

Conclusion

Before you can decide the topic that you will use for your dissertation, you will need
to carry out an initial search of the literature to ensure yourself that the topic is one
which you re happy with and that there is relevant published literature on the topic so
that you can develop a literature review for your dissertation. For certain topics the
literature that directly relates to your topic may be limited, if this is the case then you
will need to check other associated literature which you may be able to use.

Once you are happy with your topic you need to develop your main research objective

You will then need to develop a research question/s that will allow you meet your
research objective

Armed with a topic and research question you can think about writing your
dissertation proposal.

Ian Ridley
February 2015
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