An empirical study on the implementation and evaluation of a goal-driven software development risk management model

Context: Building a quality software product in the shortest possible time to satisfy the global market demand gives an enterprise a competitive advantage. However, uncertainties and risks exist at every stage of a software development project. These can have an extremely high influence on the success of the final software product. Early risk management practice is effective to manage such risks and contributes effectively towards the project success. Objective: Despite risk management approaches, a detailed guideline that explains where to integrate risk management activities into the project is still missing. Little effort has been directed towards the evaluation of the overall impact of a risk management method. We present a Goal-driven Software Development Risk Management Model (GSRM) and its explicit integration into the requirements engineering phase and an empirical investigation result of applying GSRM into a project. Method: We combine the case study method with action research so that the results from the case study directly contribute to manage the studied project risks and to identify ways to improve the proposed methodology. The data is collected from multiple sources and analysed both in a qualitative and quantitative way. Results: When risk factors are beyond the control of the project manager and project environment, it is difficult to control these risks. The project scope affects all the dimensions of risk. GSRM is a reasonable risk management method that can be employed in an industrial context. The study results have been compared against other study results in order to generalise findings and identify contextual factors. Conclusion: A formal early stage risk management practice provides early warning related to the problems that exists in a project, and it contributes to the overall project success. It is not necessary to always consider budget and schedule constraints as top priority. There exist issues such as requirements, change management, and user satisfaction which can influence these constraints.