“In regular life, when you hear the word “risk,” you probably translate it to the following statement, “There is a chance that I will endure some harm, but in all likelihood, I probably will not.”
Software development “risks” have a high likelihood of impacting budget and timeline. Many times, risks are not identified, or accepted heedlessly. Timelines and budgets are blown.
What you can do: Understand the most common project risks; account for them in timeline and budget.
Every software project has risks. Getting the definition straight—that a risk is likely to have consequences—is the first step.
Next you must identify your risks. Most businesspeople do not know how to identify risks in a project. These five items always go into my risk column until proven otherwise:
Integration—The need for one system to exchange data with another
Data migration—Porting data from an older system into the new one
Customization—Inventing a novel feature or function
Unproven technology—Employing a new/hot technology just introduced
Too-large project—Tackling a massive project in one fell swoop rather than breaking it up into parts
Sometimes risks can be avoided. If a business leader is aware of risky items and their likely consequences, she can eliminate features in a project or put the kibosh on some sexy new technology an influential cadre of people want. When risks are identified and accepted, contingency budget and timeline should be set aside to deal with them.” – Anna Murray, excerpted from her article, “4 Most Common Software Project Management Mistakes, and How to Fix Them” @ Information-Management.com, click here to read the article in its entirety. (Anna Murray is the author of the best-selling business book, The Complete Software Project Manager: Mastering Technology from Planning to Launch and Beyond).
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