Subject: Software Engineering

Topic: Risk Management

Difficulty: High

A risk management strategy can be defined as a software project plan or the risk management steps. It can be organized into a separate Risk Mitigation, Monitoring and Management Plan. The RMMM plan documents all work performed as part of risk analysis and is used by the project manager as part of the overall project plan.

Teams do not develop a formal RMMM document. Rather, each risk is documented individually using a risk information sheet . In most cases, the RIS is maintained using a database system, so that creation and information entry, priority ordering, searches, and other analysis may be accomplished easily.

Once RMMM has been documented and the project has begun, risk mitigation and monitoring steps commence. As we have already discussed, risk mitigation is a problem avoidance activity. Risk monitoring is a project tracking activity with three primary objectives:

(1) to assess whether predicted risks occur.

(2) to ensure that risk aversion steps defined for the risk are being properly applied; and

(3) to collect information that can be used for future risk analysis.

Effective strategy must consider three issues:

• risk avoidance

• risk monitoring

• risk management and contingency planning.

Proactive approach to risk – avoidance strategy. 1. Develop risk mitigation plan. 2. Develop a strategy to mitigate this risk for reducing turnover. 3. Meet with current staff to determine causes for turnover. 4. Mitigate those causes that are under our control before the project starts.

• Organize project teams so that information about each development activity is widely dispersed.

• Define documentation standards and establish mechanisms to be sure that documents are developed in a timely manner.Project manager monitors for likelihood of risk,Project manager should monitor the effectiveness of risk mitigation steps.Risk management and contingency planning assumes that mitigation efforts have failed and that the risk has become a reality.RMMM steps incur additional project cost.

THE RMMM PLAN

Risk Mitigation, Monitoring and Management Plan (RMMM) – documents all work performed as part of risk analysis and is used by the project manager as part of the overall project plan.RIS is maintained using a database system, so that creation and information entry, priority ordering, searches, and other analysis may be accomplished easily. Risk monitoring is a project tracking activity

Three primary objectives:

• assess whether predicted risks do, in fact, occur

• ensure that risk aversion steps defined for the risk are being properly applied

• collect information that can be used for future risk analysis.