Risk management in software development

Abstract

Explicit and systematic management of risks in software projects has become a more common practice amongst leading software organizations, However, often the methods used have severe theoretical and practical limitations that may lead to biased or inappropriate control of risks. The first part of this tutorial presents a critical overview of the current risk management technology, discussing the pros and cons of main approaches, as well as guidelines for their use. The second part of the tutorial presents the Riskit method with concrete examples and exercises. Riskit is a risk management method that has been developed to provide a theoretically sound, yet practical risk management approach. The method has been used and evaluated in several industrial projects in Europe and in the U.S.