Chapter06

Supplementary Slides for
Software Engineering:
A Practitioner's Approach, 5/
e
copyright © 1996, 2001
R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc.

For University Use Only
May be reproduced ONLY for student use at the university level
when used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach.
Any other reproduction or use is expressly prohibited.

This presentation, slides, or hardcopy may NOT be used for
short courses, industry seminars, or consulting purposes.

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach,
5/e and are provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
1

Chapter 6
Risk Management

2

Project Risks

What can go wrong?
What is the likelihood?
What will the damage be?
What can we do about it?

3

Reactive Risk Management
¶ project team reacts to risks when they occur
¶ mitigation—plan for additional resources in anticipation
of fire fighting
¶ fix on failure—resource are found and applied when the
risk strikes
¶ crisis management—failure does not respond to applied
resources and project is in jeopardy

4

Proactive Risk Management
t formal risk analysis is performed
t organization corrects the root causes of
risk
¶ TQM concepts and statistical SQA
¶ examining risk sources that lie beyond the bounds of
the software
¶ developing the skill to manage change

5

Risk Management Paradigm

control

track

plan
RISK identify

analyze

6

Building a Risk Table

Risk Probability Impact RMMM

Risk
Mitigation
Monitoring
&
Management

7

Building the Risk Table
t Estimate the probability of occurrence
t Estimate the impact on the project on a
scale of 1 to 5, where
¶ 1 = low impact on project success
¶ 5 = catastrophic impact on project success
t sort the table by probability and impact

8

Risk Mitigation, Monitoring,
and Management
t mitigation—how can we avoid the risk?
t monitoring—what factors can we track
that will enable us to determine if the
risk is becoming more or less likely?
t management—what contingency plans
do we have if the risk becomes a
reality?

9

Risk Due to Product Size
Attributes that affect risk:
• estimated size of the product in LOC or FP?

• estimated size of product in number of programs,
files, transactions?
• percentage deviation in size of product from
average for previous products?
• size of database created or used by the product?
• number of users of the product?
• number of projected changes to the requirements
for the product? before delivery? after delivery?
• amount of reused software?

10

Risk Due to Business Impact
Attributes that affect risk:
• affect of this product on company revenue?
• visibility of this product by senior management?
• reasonableness of delivery deadline?
• number of customers who will use this product
• interoperability constraints
• sophistication of end users?
• amount and quality of product documentation that
must be produced and delivered to the customer?
• governmental constraints
• costs associated with late delivery?
• costs associated with a defective product?

11

Risks Due to the Customer
Questions that must be answered:
• Have you worked with the customer in the past?
• Does the customer have a solid idea of requirements?
• Has the customer agreed to spend time with you?
• Is the customer willing to participate in reviews?
• Is the customer technically sophisticated?
• Is the customer willing to let your people do their
job—that is, will the customer resist looking over your
shoulder during technically detailed work?
• Does the customer understand the software
engineering process?

12

Risks Due to Process Maturity
• Have you established a common process framework?
• Is it followed by project teams?
• Do you have management support for
software engineering
• Do you have a proactive approach to SQA?
• Do you conduct formal technical reviews?
• Are CASE tools used for analysis, design and
testing?
• Are the tools integrated with one another?
• Have document formats been established?

13

Technology Risks
• Is the technology new to your organization?
• Are new algorithms, I/O technology required?
• Is new or unproven hardware involved?
• Does the application interface with new software?
• Is a specialized user interface required?
• Is the application radically different?
• Are you using new software engineering methods?
• Are you using unconventional software development
methods, such as formal methods, AI-based approaches,
artificial neural networks?
• Are there significant performance constraints?
• Is there doubt the functionality requested is "do-able?"

14

Staff/People Risks
• Are the best people available?
• Does staff have the right skills?
• Are enough people available?
• Are staff committed for entire duration?
• Will some people work part time?
• Do staff have the right expectations?
• Have staff received necessary training?
• Will turnover among staff be low?

15

Recording Risk Information

Project: Embedded software for XYZ system
Risk type: schedule risk
Priority (1 low ... 5 critical): 4
Risk factor: Project completion will depend on tests which require
hardware component under development. Hardware component
delivery may be delayed
Probability: 60 %
Impact: Project completion will be delayed for each day that
hardware is unavailable for use in software testing
Monitoring approach:
Scheduled milestone reviews with hardware group
Contingency plan:
Modification of testing strategy to accommodate delay using
software simulation
Estimated resources: 6 additional person months beginning 7-1-96

16

Chapter06

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