Research Paper

Refining Your Project Management Research Topic

Student Name: Srinivasa Shiva Theja Yadlapalli

Proposed Project Management Research Topic: Overcoming problems of PMO in Project Management

Directions for Refining Your Research Topic

1) Review the following guidance on how to conduct research and refine your topic:

· HU Library Research Step by Step

· HU Library Credo Reference

· MIT Libraries Refining a research topic

· HU PMGT Graduate Research Topics

2) Using the HU Library, Google scholar or another scholarly research tool, conduct preliminary research on your topic to determine whether it is too broad, too narrow, and adequately addresses a project management issue or topic. You topic may need to be adjusted for the GRAD695 research paper.

· Select “Peer Reviewed” to limit your search to documents reviewed by subject experts

· Select “Full Text” to limit your search to documents you can access immediately

· Add additional keywords to bring focus to your research

3) Conduct research and narrow or broaden your topic to focus on a specific PM research need, complete the table below. Repeat the process until you have achieved a reasonable number of results to research.

Instructions	List Keywords used in search	Number of Results
Search using your original Topic	Overcoming problems of PMO in Project Management	188
Add additional focused keywords based on the guidance for narrowing or broadening	PMO Risks	143
Add additional focused keywords based on the guidance for narrowing or broadening	PMO failures in project management	113
Add additional focused keywords based on the guidance for narrowing or broadening	PMO, failure, Project Management, Projects	1,307

4) Please list 3 insights that you have noted about your research topic through this exercise.

a. There is a slight narrowing of results when I enter the key words

b. There are not a lot of articles that address this problem

c. The article search broadened when I used the individual terms “PMO, Failure, Project Management” which says that there are many articles covering these topics individually but not within the scope I was searching for

5) Based on these preliminary searches, has the focus of your research changed? In what way?

Based on the what I have searched, my focus has a slight change in the topic. The results suggested to uncover the topic PMO failures in a project that resulted in organizational strategy changes or how PMO helps a change in organizational strategy.

6) Have you identified any gaps in the existing literature or recommendations for future research? (These are often found in the conclusion section of articles and research studies)

Majority of the articles that I have reviewed had been conducted in an IT organization. However, implementing PMO and its value were discussed, there is no certain understanding of why often it has failed to reach the expectations. My focus would be as to why it has failed in certain situations and how to overcome these situations to bring successful PMO implementations.

7) How does your proposed topic take a different/new approach or add to the existing body of knowledge?

My Proposed research will be helpful in analyzing different situations to help program, projects to have better PMO structure and suggest the common failures that arise with solution to overcome these failures.

For additional help with your research needs, contact a librarian at the HU Library by sending an email to [email protected]  or calling 717-901-5188. 

GRAD 695 Topic Refinement Assignment Nov 2017	2