Oil is one of the most valuable resources. For a country like Uganda, which is one of the least developed countries in the world with more than one third of the population still living below the poverty line; the discovery of this valuable resource has the capacity to radically alter the economy of the country. But on the other hand, oil exploration, mining and refining are complex, costly, long duration projects with many challenges that require sophisticated financial management, planning, scheduling and cost control. The project management profession is charged as a single point of responsibility for initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling projects in order to meet stakeholder’s needs and expectations. The research objectives were: 1. To identify and examine the challenges and risks associated with the oil industry in Uganda. 2. To investigate the effectiveness of project management practices in the Ugandan oil industry in terms 1 above. 3. Identify how project success can be measured in the Ugandan oil industry. A case study was the research technique adopted and interviews were conducted with the major stakeholders in the Ugandan oil industry. The research findings reveal the challenges and risks that continue to plague the Ugandan oil industry and the role of project management in the exploration phase of the project. The research findings were used to evaluate the role, responsibility and service that project management professionals are expected to render and the actual role, responsibility and service that the professionals have been rendering to the stakeholders in the Ugandan oil industry. The research then concludes by proposing ways of improving the chances of project success in the Ugandan oil industry.

Introduction to problem: Many software development projects today have a tendency to fail on some level. Even though they may not fail entirely, they might be completed with schedule delays, budget overrun or with poor quality that do not meet the customer?s requirements. When a project fails in some way, it is because one or many project risks have occurred. Our own opinion in this matter is that if the project team members are more aware of the project?s risks, it might increase the probability of project success. Therefore, we wanted to explore the area of risk awareness. We contacted Volvo Information Technology AB and through discussions we decided to investigate risk awareness when using one of their software project methods. That method was the Rational Unified Process. This report has not been conducted because Volvo IT considers this to be a problem that they wanted to investigate. Instead, we wanted to investigate this since we find the area of risk awareness among project team members interesting and we were able to do this with help from Volvo IT. Even though we mention the term ?project success? in this report, we will not investigate this in the report. Hypothesis: ?By using the Rational Unified Process, a higher awareness of the risks can be achieved by all team members of the project? Aim: The aim of this report is to investigate if risk awareness among project team members increases when software development projects make use of the Rational Unified Process. Method: We have used a web-based questionnaire to gather information. Four projects at Volvo Information Technology AB were contacted and asked to participate in the questionnaire. Two of these were using RUP and two did not use RUP. Personal e-mails were later sent out to each of the project managers with a description of the aim of our research and the way it would be carried out. The participants had a total of seven workdays to fill out the questionnaire. After seven days the site of the questionnaire were closed down. Conclusion: The differences in answers to certain questions have been rather significant between the two project methods. On the whole though, the answers have been positive for both project methods from a risk awareness point of view. Therefore, it seems to us that risk awareness is not dependent on the project method that is being used. We feel that we have not received enough convincing proof that members of RUP projects possess a higher awareness of project risks than non-RUP project members. Therefore we are of the opinion that we cannot verify our hypothesis. / Introduktion till problem: Många av dagens mjukvaru-projekt har en tendens till att misslyckas på ett eller annat sätt. Även om de inte misslyckas helt, kan det hända att de slutförs med förseningar, stora kostnader utanför budgetens ramar eller med otillräcklig kvalitet som inte motsvarar kundernas krav. Anledningen till att ett projekt misslyckas på något sätt är att en eller flera projekt-risker har inträffat. Vår åsikt i detta ämne är att om projekt-medlemmarna har högre medvetenhet om sitt projekts risker kan detta leda till en ökad sannolikhet att projektet "lyckas". Vi ville därför undersöka området risk-medvetenhet närmare. Vi kontaktade Volvo Information Technology AB och genom diskussioner bestämde vi oss för att undersöka risk-medvetenhet vid användandet av en av deras mjukvaru-projekts metoder. Denna metod var The Rational Unified Process. Denna rapport har inte genomförts på grund av att Volvo IT anser detta vara ett problem som de ville ha undersökt. Istället ville vi själva undersöka detta eftersom vi tycker att risk-medvetenhet bland projektets medlemmar är ett intressant område som borde undersökas. Vi kunde genomföra detta tack vare hjälp från Volvo IT. Även om vi nämner begreppet "lyckade projekt" i rapporten, kommer vi i rapporten inte att undersöka detta. Hypotes: "Genom att använda sig av the Rational Unified Process, kan man uppnå en högre risk-medvetenhet bland projektets samtliga medlemmar" Syfte: Syftet med denna rapport är att undersöka om risk-medvetenheten bland projektets medlemmar ökar när mjukvaru-projekt använder sig av the Rational Unified Process. Metod: Vi har använt en web-baserad enkät för att samla information. Vi kontaktade fyra projekt på Volvo Information Technology AB och frågade om de ville medverka i vår enkät. Två av dessa projekt använde the Rational Unified Process och två gjorde det inte. Personliga e-mail skickades senare ut till varje projektledare med förklaring till syftet med undersökningen samt sättet den skulle genomföras på. Deltagarna hade totalt sju arbetsdagar att fylla i enkäten. Efter dessa sju dagar stängdes sidan med undersökningen. Slutsats: Skillnaden i svar på vissa av frågorna var ganska markanta mellan de två projekt metoderna. Dock, från ett risk-medvetenhets perspektiv, var svaren på det hela taget positiva för båda projekt metoderna. Därför verkar det som att risk-medvetenhet inte är beroende av vilken projekt-metod som används. Vi anser oss inte ha tillräckliga belägg för att medlemmar av projekt som använder the Rational Unified Process besitter en högre risk-medvetenhet än projekt som inte använder sig av denna metod. Vi anser därför att vi inte kan verifiera vår hypotes. / Sophie Eklund 0739-078698 Daniel Gunnarsson 0737-344243