8.1.1 The Factors that Lead to Unidentified Risks in Software‐intensive Projects

Abstract

Development and deployment programs continue to suffer from budget overruns, schedule delays and poor technical performance. In most cases, this is a result of failure in handling uncertainty in complex software system development. The development communities lack a systematic way of identifying, communicating, and resolving technical uncertainty. In this paper we focused on the risk identification stage and try to understand the reasons for unidentified risk appearing during project development. We interviewed project managers from industry. The findings suggest that the unidentified risk factors can be divided into three main types: Managerial, Behavioural and External. Each category consists of factors that through awareness and openness on the part of project teams and managers can help avert many problems and achieve project success.