7. Conclusion
Through the examination of a case study of a multi-billion-euro mega-project, this article has examined the long-term performative dynamics among a best-practice risk management framework, technologies of risk management and the translation of uncertainties into risks. The project's risk management practice was organised around the well-known PMBOK framework and an IT-based risk management control system programmed according to the PMBOK. The article argues that the PMBOK framework and the IT-based system performed the construction of risks through establishing the boundaries of the forms of uncertainties that were accepted and thus included as risks.
The accepted risks are labelled ‘pure risks’, conversely the excluded risks are labelled as ‘impure risks’. In explaining the dynamics of this framing, our article demonstrates that the IT-based system became a conduit for overflows, which actualised the prediction of PMBOK but also distorted that very same prediction. This dynamic occurred because the IT-based system generated concerns and frustrations from managers, who were troubled by having risk propositions excluded for being impure. In attempting to manage these emerging concerns, the consultants, who were operating the system, carried out a continual stream of readjustments. In association with the PMBOK framework, they mobilised an entire series of mediators, such as inscriptions, which allowed them to purify the construction of risks. This process was always provisional. The IT-based system, in particular, became key to purification because the risk consultants could visually frame the performable space of the practice.
