We have already stressed the importance of preparation, and in this chapter, we are focusing on the prerequisites. However well you may prepare, however strong your plan may be, things may change and give rise to risks.
A look at the following quote and you will know the importance of this subject:
If you've been in the software business for any time at all, you know that there are certain common problems that plague one project after another. Missed schedules and creeping requirements are not things that just happen to you once and then go away, never to appear again. Rather, they are part of the territory. We all know that. What's odd is that we don't plan our projects as if we knew it. Instead, we plan as if our past problems are locked in the past and will never rear their ugly heads again. Of course, you know that isn't a reasonable expectation.
- Tom DeMarco
- Tom DeMarco
Risks may come in various forms. The most commonly seen risks are:
- Time delays
- Low adoption
- Unclean data
- Deviations from planned scope of work
- Project champion leaving the company
- Inability to connect to data source
- Performance issues
Different phases of risk management are depicted in Risk management phases figure and let's look at each one of them:
Risk management phases