Software Projects Fail: The Software Development Risk Landscape

github.com

12 points·bobm_kite9··6 comments

This is a single page from Risk-First, introducing the idea that we can categorise the risks we face on software projects.

What do you think?

Does our discipline lend itself to this kind of rigor, or are all our projects unique software snowflakes?

i think there are definitely categories of risk, and knowing these categories is helpful. when can then analyse a software project in terms of which risks are relevant, which have a contingency and which can simply be ignored. then it's possible to focus on the risks that are actually serious and can be addressed.

Are there any others that you find useful that aren't suggested here?

i haven't read through each of the detailed pages, but just by looking at the categories one that popped into my mind is legal or regulatory risks

what happens if laws or regulations change? for example rules that caused uber to stop operating in certain cities. rules around health software, etc...

This is a really good point, and I need to cover this in a bit more depth, probably as part of the Operational Risk page.

(After a bit of digging, it seems that Basel II puts Legal Risk in the Operational Risk bucket, which is something I tend to agree with... will open a ticket)

Is the financial crisis a good example here? A systemic failure of risk management caused by a bonus scheme that rewarded bad behaviour and led banks to over extend themselves. Seems like it was short-term rewards rather than any failure in understanding the risks per se. Lots of people called it

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