Mumbai University > Computer Engineering > Sem6 > Software Engineering

Marks: 10M

Year: May 2015

Software risks:

There are two characteristics of the risks

1. The risk may or may not happen. It shows the uncertainty of the risk.
2. When risks occur, unwanted consequences or losses will occur.

Different types of risk

1. Project Risk

Project risk arises in the software development process then they basically affect budget, schedule, staffing, resources, and requirement. When project risks become severe then the total cost of project get increased.

2. Technical Risk

These risks affect quality and timeliness of the project. If technical risk becomes reality then potential design, implementation, interface, verification and maintenance problem gets created. Technical risks occur when problem becomes harder to solve.

3. Business Risk

When feasibility of software product is in suspect then business risks occur. Business risks can be classified as follows

i. Market Risk

When quality of software product built but if there is no customer for this product then it is called market risk (i.e. no market for product).

ii. Strategic Risk

When product is built and if it is not following the company’s business policies then such product brings strategic risks.

iii. Sales Risk

When product is built but how to sell is not clear then such situation brings sales risk.

iv. Management Risk

When senior management or the responsible staff leaves the organizations then management risk occur.

v. Budget Risk

Losing the overall budget of the project called Budget risk.

1. Known risks are those that are identified by evaluating the project plan. There are two types of known risk

   a. Predictable Risk

   Predictable risk are those that can be identified in advance based on past project experience

   b. Unpredictable Risk

   Unpredictable risks are those that cannot be guessed earlier.

   RMMM

   RMM stands for risk mitigation, monitoring and management. There are three issues in strategy for handling the risk is

   1. Risk Avoidance
   2. Risk Monitoring
   3. Risk Management

   Risk Mitigation

   Risk mitigation means preventing the risk to occur (risk avoidance). Following are the steps to be taken for mitigating the risks.

   1. Communicate with the concerned staff to find of probable risk.
   2. Find out and eliminate all those causes that can create risk before the project starts.
   3. Develop a policy in an organization which will help to continue the project even through same staff leaves the organization.
   4. Everybody in the project team should be acquainted with the current development activity
   5. Maintain the corresponding documents in timely manner
   6. Conduct timely reviews in order to speed up work.
   7. For conducting every critical activity during software development, provide the additional staff if required.

   Risk Monitoring

   In Risk Monitoring process following thing must be monitored by the project manager.

   1. The approach and behaviour of the team member as pressure of project varies.
   2. The degree in which the team performs with the spirit of “Team-Work”.
   3. The type of cooperation between the team members.
   4. The type of problem occur in team member.
   5. Availability of jobs within and outside of the organization.

   The objective of risk mitigation is

   1. To check whether the predicted risk really occur or not.
   2. To ensure the steps defined to avoid the risk are applied properly or not.
   3. To gather the information this can be useful for analyzing the risk.

   Risk Management

   Project manager performs this task when risk becomes a reality. If project manager is successful in applying the project mitigation effectively then it becomes very much easy to manage the risks.

   For example,

   Consider a scenario that many people are leaving the organization then if sufficient additional staff is available, if current development activity is known to everybody in the team, if latest and systematic documentation is available then any ‘new comer’ can easily understand current development activity. This will ultimately help in continuing the work without any interval.