Step Six: Quantify Risks and Risk Analysis
The best managers of software projects seem to have an uncanny ability to anticipate what can happen to their projects and devise just-in-time mitigation approaches to avoid the full impacts of the problems. In reality, this ability is simply the skillful application of well known risk management techniques to the well known problems of software management. Unfortunately, too many software managers are skilled in seeing potential risks and then ignoring them outright.
Before we explore the risk management process and how to apply it to the risks associated with sizing and estimation, it is important to understand what a risk is and that a risk, in itself, does not necessarily pose a threat to a software project if it is recognized and addressed before it becomes a problem.
