A New Mathematical Risk Management Model for Agile Software Development Methodologies

Abstract

This paper proposes a new mathematical model for estimating the cost of explicit Agile software development risk management with its Impact Benefit s (savings/profits). This is necessitated by the fact that despite the increase in the need for managing risks explicitly in medium-to-large scale agile software development projects presently, there are no known ways to estimate explicit risk management costs/benefits. With the proposed model, explicit risk management procedures alongside with risk management estimation techniques is made known to Stakeholders who will be able to make the right decisions on risk management costs and its impacts as well as when to utilise implicit or explicit risk management. The proposed system proves to be feasible and dependable and is evidently capable of enhancing the agile methods for use for all sizes of software projects while still maintaining the swiftness of the agile process.

Explicit Risk Management in Agile Software Projects: Its Relevance and Benefits

“…That way risk details can easily be recalled and status updated. Such risk tools as Agile Risk Track Sheet (ARITS) and Repository as developed by [3] are suggested because they are web-based with smart database, and can be used by all teams working in different locations.…”

“…Thus, the presence of a Risk Manager in the development team is very important to avoid skipping identified risks. Such a role is not explicitly spelled out in a core agile setting [3].…”

“…Risk management is the systematic procedure that involves identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, controlling, and monitoring risks to reduce and possibly eliminate any negative outcome of the risks in actualizing the project's objectives. It is a must-follow process [3,4] and needs to be carried out throughout the entire software development process. The need for managing risks even becomes more necessary as the project size and complexity increase [5].…”

“…To manage external risks, some form of formal procedure is needed to identify, analyze and control risks [10]. While this works well with small projects [3,20]; software development domains that are highly regulated [15] such as automotive [11] and healthcare [12], as well as generally large projects [4], are bound to have higher number of iterations and some risks will be left unidentified or forgotten in the process. The resultant effect could be faced in the later stage of the development cycle and this will likely be costlier to rework [3,4].…”

“…This implies that lack of risk management is risk in itself [5]. Agile teams are democratic and selforganizing ideally, consisting of developers with all the necessary required skills, however, they do not consider a risk manager [2,3,25,26] whose sole duty is to take note of all risks identified by the team and also ensure that the risks are managed properly. It is believed that risk management is passive and implied in the agile process.…”