Risk Management in Software Engineering: Predict and Prevent Failure

What is risk management in software engineering and how does it solve the following problems:

• Poor code quality — code issues are the most common and the most dangerous type of risk in software development.
• Aggressive deadlines — a deadline that is too tight is almost always bound to be extended at some point.
• Low productivity — is a human factor problem that can be resolved by effective project management and proper motivation techniques.
• Budget issues — running out of budget in the middle of development is basically a game over for the project.

Find out in the following article.

Software development is a complex and multifaceted process that requires technical prowess, strong organization, and a flexible management methodology. According to Forbes, only 2,5% of software development projects reach 100% of their goals, and as much as 17% of the projects go so horribly wrong, they could threaten the very existence of an IT company. What is going on with such alarming numbers? Why do projects fail so badly, and why do only a small fraction of projects reach the entirety of their goals?

The answer could be found behind poor risk management in software engineering. Any business and software development project’s goal are to bring monetary value. They may have different shapes and forms, different target audiences, and function within different industries, but the end goal is always the same — generate ROI. So, how do you achieve that goal while avoiding the major risks in software development? Let us see how risk management practices can improve your chances for successful development and how they help you mitigate possible threats on the path to business value.

What is Risk Management in Software Engineering

First of all, what is a risk? It is a potential problem that could compromise the success of your software development project; a possibility of failure, crisis, or loss, and it is essential to evaluate your total exposure to risks throughout the development process. That is exactly what the risk management process in software engineering is all about — evaluating and mitigating potential threats to the integrity of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Efficient risk prevention can be achieved through predictive software engineering so that you can capture the probability of a project experiencing unfavorable currents throughout the development process. To do that, you need to know what types of risks to look for.

Types of Risks in Software Project Management

Each technology project is unique, and a good software development partner has to understand that to properly evaluate and manage the potential risks. There are several major types of risks and types of risk management in software engineering to address them:

New and Unproven Technology

Many IT companies deal with innovative and sometimes unproven technologies that might not have yet proven their efficiency. Working with frontier tech is always risky as you cannot be 100% sure it would work as intended. Such technologies as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, IoT, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), are still in their formative years, and their proper implementation requires strong innovative potential from your software partner. You need a software development partner who can take the necessary steps in risk management in software engineering and apply the right technologies in the right business context. It is not about innovation for the sake of innovation alone, this is about picking the right technology stack that fits the needs of your organization.

Failure to Foresee Functional Requirements

Capturing all the functional and user requirements is vital for the success of any software. If you are planning to sell your solution to a certain audience, you must be sure it corresponds to all its requirements and can effectively solve the users’ problems. More so, it has to be better than any solution launched by the competitors, so it stands a chance in the market. In most cases, the custom software development process begins with the discovery phase during which you and your vendor validate all the ideas for the product and go over all the technical requirements to make sure they correspond to the market standards and are generally feasible.

At this stage, you and your technology partner will go over all the potential risks related to technical requirements as they are likely to persist throughout the entire SDLC. With these requirements and risks in mind, you can proceed to further stages of development having a clear roadmap in your hands.

Not Planning the System Architecture

Taking the wrong path with your system, application, or platform components and architecture can doom your entire project from the get-go. You need experts who can design robust and well-thought-out architecture for your project before the development stage begins. As much as with product discovery, this is the phase that gives you a technical roadmap for the project. With that, your team can start working on the project knowing exactly what to do and when to do it.

Insufficient Performance

You cannot ignore the importance of risk management in software engineering when it comes to user expectations. Testing your software throughout the development process is a critical part of launching a successful product that performs on the level with the industry’s highest standards. Even the best idea might fall victim to minor bugs and inconsistent performance.

Crashes, bugs, lags, and all the other issues that might compromise the user experience can deal a fatal blow even to the best products on the market, especially when the competition is fierce. You can address this problem with thorough testing that occurs throughout the development process and before the market launch. Manual and automated testing can help you avoid any critical performance breakdowns that might turn heads away from your product.

Lack of Talent

The human factor remains one of the defining factors for the success of your project. You can have the best tech stack and the most thorough plan, and still, fail just because you don’t have the right talent or because your developers do not perform as desired. To make sure this problem does not influence your project, you need to consider it when mapping up your process of risk management in software engineering. With a reliable technology partner, you can find a sufficient team of experts for your project and make sure they correspond to the needs of your project both in terms of their skills and their personal commitment to the job. Remote In-Sourcing® can help you find the right people for the job in a matter of weeks, saving you both time and money and mitigating the risks related to the lack of talent.

How to Manage Risks in Software Development?

Now that we have listed the major risks in software engineering, we can talk about the ways you can deal with them and maximize your chances for success. What you need is a plan — it will help you navigate through the rough currents and mitigate any potential risks along the way.

Plan Risks Ahead

As mentioned, the discovery phase is where you and your technology partner define all the technical requirements and design the project architecture. That is where you begin to plan and prepare for the risks ahead. Planning your steps ahead allows you to avoid many pitfalls, understand where your project is going, when it is going to be complete, and how much it will cost. With that, you must plan overheads as well. According to the Project Management Institute report, an average IT project overruns its budget by 27%, and one in six projects overshoots its budget by as much as 200%. While overheads are possible, you should make sure they are not as exorbitant.

Monitor and Mitigate

In a perfect world, you’d be able to prevent all the risks by planning alone. But the reality of software development is that things change dramatically all the time, and you need to stay in touch with the project to monitor all the potential changes and mitigate the risks. Project monitoring includes:

• Regular project status reports that include possible risk measurements;
• Risk plans according to any major changes in the project schedule;
• Reviews and prioritization of risks to cut them one by one;
• Brainstorms on potential new risks after any changes to the project roadmap.

When you have your risks monitored, prioritized, and evaluated, you need a strategy to deal with each of them.

Apply the Right Principle of Risk Management

The main principles of risk management in software engineering are the following:

1. Avoid — adjust the project scope, deadline, budget, or team composition to minimize the effects of the risk;
2. Accept — you can acknowledge the risk impacting the project and just roll with it. If the risk is minor and solving it would cost you more than actually going through it, it might be a good idea to just go through with it;
3. Control — take all the necessary actions and embrace full control over the situation to reduce the impact or intensification of the risk;
4. Transfer — make a shift within a team or organization to delegate the risk-solving responsibilities to people who can do it best;
5. Continue monitoring — oftentimes, observing the situation is the best decision. Monitor the environment to see whether the risk escalates or not.

Examples of Different Types of Project Risks in Software Engineering

There are several common risks that are tightly related to software engineering. Some can lead to disastrous outcomes while the others are minor bumps on the road. Here are some of them:

• Poor code quality — code issues are the most common and the most dangerous type of risk in software development. You can avoid it by hiring expert developers with sufficient industry experience and by regularly testing your code.
• Aggressive deadlines — a deadline that is too tight is almost always bound to be extended at some point. Be realistic about your deadlines or go with a fixed-price outsourcing model to transfer responsibilities to the vendor.
• Low productivity — is a human factor problem that can be resolved by effective project management and proper motivation techniques.
• Budget issues — running out of budget in the middle of development is basically a game over for the project. Plan your budget well and partner up with a vendor who respects your budget needs.

Poor risk management in software engineering can also be considered a major problem that often makes or breaks the final product. These are just some of the problems that might put the success of your project in jeopardy, and you need to take them seriously to avoid major setbacks on your path to success.

Summary

Guesswork is never a good idea when it comes to big investments, and any type of software development project — big or small — is an investment you make expecting to receive some returns. You need to evaluate the probability of failure, and its possible causes, and implement the necessary negation strategies. Overall, risk management is a whole field of studies and we’ve just scratched the surface of it. To make sure your project goes smoothly, partner with a reliable software development company and always stay in touch with the development team.