A risky business: managing and mitigating risks for service-learning projects for an information systems capstone two-course sequence

This paper describes an Information Systems/Information Technology two-course Systems Analysis and Design capstone sequence where student teams participate in a service-learning project. Community non-profit or service organizations provide the systems need where student consultants show their lessons learned. While a great percentage of students complete the course requirements the quality of project they are able to deliver varies greatly. Risk of project failure is inherent in any real-world service-learning project. How a student team manages and mitigates that project failure is as important as other lessons learned in this two course capstone sequence. An identification of various project risks related to community client-based projects will be presented to provide guidance to instructors approving Service-Learning proposals and assisting student teams to manage and mitigate risks as they arise.

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