Managing risk in construction projects during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research topic:
Managing risk in construction projects during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is targeted to identify the risks that can be caused to the health and safety of the workers,
project duration overruns, exceeding the estimated cost in construction projects due to the
COVID-19 outbreak and to find proper strategies to mitigate those identified risks.
Introduction:
Construction industries are facing a lot of risks and difficulties, due to the COVID-19 pandemic
outbreak. Various research articles have been published addressing how to mitigate the COVID-
19 spread among workers within the construction site (Aslan & Türkakın 2022; Wang, Yi & Wang
2023; Arya 2021). But according to the literature, it is focused only on minimising the spread of
COVID-19 among the labourers when working on the construction site. It is crucial to keep
labourers healthy and safe, but apart from the health risk of the workers on the construction
site, more risks can be caused to construction project delays, which overrun the cost of the
project. This research intensely focuses on identifying the risk that can be risen to delay
construction projects during the pandemic outbreak such as risks in finding and delivering
materials, increased material costs, inflation due to the pandemic, and countries' lockdowns to
minimize the pandemic spread.
The studies of Aslan & Türkakın (2022) focus on how to allocate skillsets to minimize the virus
spread among workers. Also, Aslan & Türkakın (2022) found that reducing the number of
labourers reduced the health and safety risk, as well as the overall cost of the project and the
project duration have been increased to a manageable limit concerning the reduced risk level of
health and safety. Wang, Yi & Wang (2023) also concerned about the safety of the construction
workers is more important. Wang, Yi & Wang (2023) focused on making small resting areas for
each labourer group to reduce the spread of the virus. Arya (2021) focused on minimizing the
number of labourers who are working in an exact geographical area in which construction is
going on, to keep a safe distance between each labourer to avoid virus spread. Also, Arya (2021)
highlighted that keeping labourers safe is a key point to avoiding delays and cost overruns in
construction projects. From the literature studies (Aslan & Türkakın 2022; Wang, Yi & Wang
2023; Arya 2021), it is obvious to keep labourers safe and healthy to maintain the required
workforce in the construction field and maintain the flow of the construction activities without
any delays and cost overruns.
Research Questions or Objectives
Research Question.
Research is based on finding proper strategies to overcome and manage risks in a construction
project during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research Objectives.
 To identify the risk associated with construction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 To find the proper strategies to minimize the risks that can be caused during the COVID-
19 pandemic.

Methodology
In order to find strategies for the adopted research questions and research objectives, a
literature review was done by using Scopus to figure out what the recent studies carried out
with relevant to the adopted research question and to its objectives. As well as to identify the
research gaps.
To identify the answers to the research question, will carry out qualitative methodology, and
expect to interview a specific number of project managers to identify what are the risks that
they have faced regarding project delays and cost overruns and safety of the workers, during
the Pandemic outbreak. And expect to follow the grounded theory analysing method in order to
identify the strategies to overcome the identified risks associated with the construction industry
during COVID-19.
Research Scope
Ten project managers from Victoria Australia will be interviewed.
Timetable and Budget
Timetable
Item Description Duration Starting
Date
Ending
Date
1.0 Finalizing the research proposal 15 days 24/04/2023 24/04/2023
1.1 Final proposal submission 10 days 24/04/2023 04/05/2023
1.2 Approval for the final submission 5 days 05/05/2023 10/05/2023
2.0 Doing the interview 54 days 11/05/2023 06/07/2023
2.1 Finalizing what data’s to be collected from
the interview
14 days 11/05/2023 25/05/2023
2.2
Doing research about who are the well-
experienced project managers in Victoria
Australia
10 days 26/05/2023 04/06/2023
2.3 Getting confirmation from the selected PM
to do the interview
10 days 05/06/2023 15/06/2023
2.4 Making the interview questions and the
plans
20 days 26/05/2023 15/06/2023
2.5 Carrying out the interviews 20 days 16/06/2023 06/07/2023
3.0 Making the report 60 days 07/07/2023 06/09/2023

3.1 Organising the collected data 10 days 07/07/2023 17/07/2023
3.2 Develop a report with respect to the
collected data
50 days 18/07/2023 06/09/2023
4.0 Finalizing the report 30 days 07/09/2023 08/10/2023
4.1 Re-reading the developed report and
correcting errors, grammar, spelling
mistakes, referencing styles
20 days 07/09/2023 27/09/2023
4.2 Formatting the written report – scaling the
paragraphs' spacings, font sizes...etc
10 days 28/09/2023 08/10/2023
5.0 Submit the report 1 day 09/10/2023 10/10/2023
Budget:
Item Description Unit Unit
Price
(AUD)
Quantity Amount
(AUD)
1 Internet connection – Aussie
broadband
1 month
rental
79.00 6 Months 474.00
1.1 Internet Modem 1 Unit 179.00 1 No 179.00
2 Transportation cost - - - 1500.00
3 Telephone cost – Boost mobile 1 month
rental
30.00 6 Months 180.00
4 Laptop 1 Unit 2000.00 1 No 2000.00
5 Printer 1 Unit 69.00 1 No 69.00
6 A4 Sheets 1 Bundle 8.20 2 No 16.20
7 Stationeries - - - 50.00
8 Payments for Library, journals - - - 1000.00