There are numerous types of risks that can occur during the implementation, design, & testing of a software program. The following list and descriptions are key risks that are typical to appear and affect a software team:
1: A Schedule Flaw
Due to the unpredictability and everchanging nature of software, providing an accurate schedule and planning deadlines is an extremely difficult task. To combat this risk, one possible approach is to spend more time and effort into planning.
In addition, getting feedback early on from the stakeholders involved in the project to address potential issues that can affect the schedule. This specific risk would fall under the Estimation & Scheduling category.
2: An Employee Leaving
There are numerous circumstances where crucial employees will leave the project, possibly due to a better offer at another firm, or personal reasons. This indicates that there are a lower number of team members on the project, which means that the project lost important resources.
This is a very detrimental issue as this will require hiring another team member and walking them through the software project, which will cost time and resources. This specific risk would fall under the Staffing category.
3: Client Changes Software Requirements
Requirements that were stated at the initial state of the project are subject to change at any time, in addition to new requirements emerging that weren't specified before. This is an issue because new requirements cost time and money which were not accounted for at the beginning of the project.
One solution to this is making communication between the stakeholders and the project members a priority, as this might lessen the requests that occur later on in the project if the clients are involved and can see the output and layout of their project early on. his specific risk would fall under the Requirements Specification category.
4: Poor Productivity
This software issue entails that the team failed to meet the deadline and stick to their schedule on time. This can occur because of having team members not complete their assigned work properly or on time, which can be detrimental in the early stages as this will cost a lot of the initial parts to be pushed
to a later date, which will cause a large loss of time. Another factor that might contribute to this is long timelines and heavy workloads, which might cause the team to become unmotivated and causes them to tire early on. One way to combat this issue is choosing the right kind of team members that are productive and can stick to a schedule.
This specific risk would fall under both the Staffing category, and the Estimation & Scheduling Risks category.
5: Underestimating The Cost of Resources
This risk occurs when the budget estimation is highly inaccurate and causes the software project to be put in jeopardy as there are resources that are needed that weren't accounted for.
One possible solution to this is slightly overestimating the budget from the start that the client will agree to, therefore if the remainder of the money was needed, the team won't be in danger of budget risk. This specific risk would fall under the Estimation & Scheduling category.