Risk Management

Risk management is concerned with identifying risks and drawing up plans to minimize their effect on project. A risk is a probability that some adverse circumstances will occur.

• Project risks affect schedule or resources.
• Product risks affect the quality or performance of the software being developed.
• Business risks affect the organization developing or procuring the software.

Software risks can be due to:
Staff turnover – affects project, experienced staff will leave the project before it is finished.
Management Change – affects project. There will be a change of organizational management with different priorities.
Hardware unavailability – affects project; Hardware that is essential for the project will not be delivered on time.
Requirement change – affects project an product; There will be a larger number of changes to the requirements than anticipated.
Specification delays – affects project and product; Specification of essential interfaces are not available on schedule.
Size underestimate – affects project and product; The size of the system has been underestimated.
CASE tools under performance – affects product; CASE tools which support the projects do not perform as anticipated.
Technology Change – affects business; The underlying technology on which the system is built is suspended by new technology.
Product competition – affects business; A competitive product is marketed before the system is completed.

Risks Types

Technology Risks

• The database used in the system cannot process as many transactions per second as expected.
• Software components that should be reused contain defects that limit their functionality

People Risks

• It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required
• Key staffs are ill and unavailable at critical times.
• Required training or staff is not available.

Organizational Risks

• The organization is restructured so that different management are responsible for the project.
• Organizational financial problems force reduction in the project budget.

Tools Risks

• The code generated by CASE tools is insufficient
• CASE tools cannot be integrated.

Requirement Risks

• Changes to requirements that require major design rework are proposed.
• Customers fail to understand the impact of requirement changes.

Estimation  Risks

• The time required to develop the software is underestimated.
• The rate of the defect repair is underestimated.
• The size of the software is underestimated.