Software Quality Engineering

CT051-3.5-3

Risk Management Part 2

Software Engineering

Prepared by: xxx First Prepared on: xx-xx-xx Last Modified on: xx-xx-xx
Quality checked by: xxx
Copyright 2004 Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology
Topic & Structure of the lesson

• What is Software Risk Management?

• What can it help you do?
• When should you do it?
• How should you do it?
• What are its new trends and
opportunities?
• Conclusions
• Top-10 Risk Survey
 Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this lecture, YOU should be

able to:
– Identify and explain project risks
– Explain the risk management processes
 Outline

• What is Software Risk Management?

• What can it help you do?
• When should you do it?
• How should you do it?
• What are its new trends and opportunities?
• Conclusions
• Top-10 Risk Survey
 Software Risk Management
Risk
Checklists
Identification Decision driver analysis
Assumption analysis
Decomposition

Risk Risk Performance models

Assessment Cost models
Analysis
Network analysis
Decision analysis
Quality factor analysis
Risk
Prioritization Risk exposure
Risk leverage
Risk Compound risk reduction
Management
Buying information
Risk mgmt Risk avoidance
Planning Risk transfer
Risk reduction
Risk element planning
Risk plan integration
Risk Risk Prototypes
Control Resolution Simulations
Benchmarks
Analyses
Staffing
Risk
Milestone tracking
Monitoring
Top-10 tracking
Risk reassessment
Corrective action
 Risk Identification Techniques

• Risk-item checklists
• Decision driver analysis
– Comparison with experience
– Win-lose, lose-lose situations
• Decomposition
– Pareto 80 – 20 phenomena
– Task dependencies
– Murphy’s law
– Uncertainty areas
• Model Clashes
 Top 10 Risk Items: 1989 and 1995

1989 1995
1. Personnel shortfalls 1. Personnel shortfalls
2. Schedules and budgets 2. Schedules, budgets, process
3. Wrong software functions 3. COTS, external components
4. Wrong user interface 4. Requirements mismatch
5. Gold plating 5. User interface mismatch
6. Requirements changes 6. Architecture, performance,
quality
7. Externally-furnished
components 7. Requirements changes
8. Externally-performed tasks 8. Legacy software
9. Real-time performance 9. Externally-performed tasks
10. Straining computer science 10. Straining computer science
Example Risk-item Checklist: Staffing

• Will you project really get all the best people?

• Are there critical skills for which nobody is identified?
• Are there pressures to staff with available warm bodies?
• Are there pressures to overstaff in the early phases?
• Are the key project people compatible?
• Do they have realistic expectations about their project job?
• Do their strengths match their assignment?
• Are they committed full-time?
• Are their task prerequisites (training, clearances, etc.)
Satisfied?
Risk ID: Examining Decision Drivers

• Political versus Technical

– Choice of equipment
– Choice of subcontractor
– Schedule, Budget
– Allocation of responsibilities
• Marketing versus Technical
– Gold plating
– Choice of equipment
– Schedule, budget
• Solution-driven versus Problem-driven
– In-house components, tools
– Artificial intelligence
– Schedule, Budget
• Short-term versus Long-term
– Staffing availability versus qualification
– Reused software productions engineering
– Premature SRR, PDR
• Outdated Experience
Potential Win-lose, Lose-lose Situations

“Winner” Loser
• Developer
• Quick, cheap, sloppy product • User
• Customer
• Developer
• Customer
• Lots of bells and whistles • Customer
• Developer
• Developer
• Driving too hard a bargain • Customer

Actually, nobody wins in these situations

Watch Out For Compound Risks

• Pushing technology on more than one front

• Pushing technology with key staff shortages
• Vague user requirements with ambitious
schedule
• Untried hardware with ambitious schedule
• Unstable interfaces with untried
subcontractor
Reduce to non-compound risks if possible
• Otherwise, devote extra attention to
compound- risk containment
 The Top Ten Software Risk Items

Risk Item Risk Management Techniques

1. Personnel Shortfalls Staffing with top talent; key personnel
agreements; incentives; team-building; training;
tailoring process to skill mix; peer reviews

2. Unrealistic schedules Business case analysis; design to cost; incremental

and budgets development; software reuse; requirements descoping;
adding more budget and schedule
3. COTS; external components Qualification testing; benchmarking; prototyping;
reference checking; compatibility analysis; vendor
analysis; evolution support analysis

4. Requirements mismatch; Stakeholder win-win negotiation; business case

gold plating analysis; mission analysis; ops-concept formulation;
user surveys; prototyping; early users’ manual;
design/develop to cost
5. User interface mismatch Prototyping; scenarios; user characterization
(functionality, style, workload)
The Top Ten Software Risk Items (Concluded)

6. Architecture, performance, Architecture tradeoff analysis and review

quality boards; simulation; benchmarking;
modeling; prototyping; instrumentation;
tuning
7. Requirements changes High change threshold; information
hiding; incremental development (defer
changes to later increments)
8. Legacy software Design recovery; phaseout options analysis;
wrappers/mediators; restructuring
9. Externally-performed Reference checking; pre-award audits;
tasks award-fee contracts; competitive design
or prototyping; team-building
10. Straining Computer Technical analysis; cost-benefit analysis;
Science capabilities prototyping; reference checking
 Risk Exposure Factors

Unsatisfactory Outcome (UO) Prob (UO) Loss (UO) Risk Exposure

A. S/ W error kills experiment 3-5 10 30 - 50
B. S/ W error loses key data
3-5 8 24 - 40
C. Fault tolerance features cause unacceptable
performance 4-8 7 28 - 56
D. Monitoring software reports unsafe condition
as safe 5 9 45
E. Monitoring software reports safe condition 15
5 3
as unsafe
F. Hardware delay causes schedule overrun 6 4 24
G. Data reduction software errors cause extra
8 1 8
work
H. Poor user interface causes inefficient 6 5 30
operation
1 7 7
I. Processor memory insufficient
J. DBMS software loses derived data 2 4
2
 Risk Management Plans

For Each Risk Item, Answer the Following Questions:

1. Why?
Risk Item Importance, Relation to Project Objectives
2. What, When?
Risk Resolution Deliverables, Milestones, Activity Nets
3. Who, Where?
Responsibilities, Organization
4. How?
Approach (Prototypes, Surveys, Models, …)
5. How Much?
Resources (Budget, Schedule, Key Personnel)
Risk Management Plan: Fault Tolerance
Prototyping

1. Objectives (The “Why”)

– Determine, reduce level of risk of the software fault tolerance features causing
unacceptable performance
– Create a description of and a development plan for a set of low-risk fault
tolerance features
2. Deliverables and Milestones (The “What” and “When”)
– By week 3
1. Evaluation of fault tolerance option
2. Assessment of reusable components
3. Draft workload characterization
4. Evaluation plan for prototype exercise
5. Description of prototype
– By week 7
6. Operational prototype with key fault tolerance features
7. Workload simulation
8. Instrumentation and data reduction capabilities
9. Draft Description, plan for fault tolerance features
– By week 10
10. Evaluation and iteration of prototype
11. Revised description, plan for fault tolerance features
 Risk Management Plan: Fault
Tolerance Prototyping (concluded)
• Responsibilities (The “Who” and “Where”)
– System Engineer: G. Smith
• Tasks 1, 3, 4, 9, 11, support of tasks 5, 10
– Lead Programmer: C. Lee
• Tasks 5, 6, 7, 10 support of tasks 1, 3
– Programmer: J. Wilson
• Tasks 2, 8, support of tasks 5, 6, 7, 10
• Approach (The “How”)
– Design-to-Schedule prototyping effort
– Driven by hypotheses about fault tolerance-performance effects
– Use real-time OS, add prototype fault tolerance features
– Evaluate performance with respect to representative workload
– Refine Prototype based on results observed
• Resources (The “How Much”)
$60K - Full-time system engineer, lead programmer, programmer (10 weeks)*(3
staff)*($2K/staff-week)
$0K - 3 Dedicated workstations (from project pool)
$0K - 2 Target processors (from project pool)
$0K - 1 Test co-processor (from project pool)
$10K - Contingencies
$70K - Total
 Risk Monitoring

Milestone Tracking
– Monitoring of risk Management Plan Milestones
Top-10 Risk Item Tracking
– Identify Top-10 risk items
– Highlight these in monthly project reviews
– Focus on new entries, slow-progress items
Focus review on manger-priority items
Risk Reassessment
Corrective Action
 Conclusions

• Risk management starts on Day One

– Delay and denial are serious career risks
– Data provided to support early investment
• Win Win spiral model provides process
framework for early risk resolution
– Stakeholder identification and win condition
reconciliation
– Anchor point milestones
• Risk analysis helps determine “how much is
enough”
– Testing, planning, specifying, prototyping,…
– Buying information to reduce risk
 discussion
TOURSOFT help the Travel industry transform to meet
rising customer expectations and deploy technology to
solve some of the industry’s most difficult challenge while
increasing operational efficiency.
Ever-changing tools, techniques, protocols, standards, and
development systems increase the probability that
technology risks will arise in virtually any substantial
software engineering effort.
Establish a strategy and explain how TOURSOFT will use
for their software development project