3RD SEM SE RISK MANAGEMENT

Project Risk Management (P 6U1)

Risk management involves all activities pertaining to identification, analyzing and making provision for predictable and non-predictable risks in the project. Risk may include the following:

• Experienced staff leaving the project and new staff coming in.
• Change in organizational management.
• Requirement change or misinterpreting requirement.
• Under-estimation of required time and resources.
• Technological changes, environmental changes, business competition.

Risk Management Process :

There are following activities involved in risk management process:

• Identification - Make note of all possible risks, which may occur in the project.
• Categorize - Categorize known risks into high, medium and low risk intensity as per their possible impact on the project.
• Manage - Analyze the probability of occurrence of risks at various phases. Make plan to avoid or face risks. Attempt to minimize their side-effects.
• Monitor - Closely monitor the potential risks and their early symptoms. Also monitor the effects of steps taken to mitigate or avoid them.

Project Execution & Monitoring :

In this phase, the tasks described in project plans are executed according to their schedules.

Execution needs monitoring in order to check whether everything is going according to the plan. Monitoring is observing to check the probability of risk and taking measures to address the risk or report the status of various tasks.

These measures include -

• Activity Monitoring - All activities scheduled within some task can be monitored on day-to-day basis. When all activities in a task are completed, it is considered as complete.
• Status Reports - The reports contain status of activities and tasks completed within a given time frame, generally a week. Status can be marked as finished, pending or work-in-progress etc.
• Milestones Checklist - Every project is divided into multiple phases where major tasks are performed (milestones) based on the phases of SDLC. This milestone checklist is prepared once every few weeks and reports the status of milestones.

 Project Management Tools (P7U1)

There are tools available, which aid for effective project management. A few are described -

GGantt charts was devised by Henry Gantt (1917). It represents project schedule with respect to time periods. It is a horizontal bar chart with bars representing activities and time scheduled for the project activities.antt Chart

 PERT Chart

PERT (Program Evaluation & Review Technique) chart is a tool that depicts project as network diagram. It is capable of graphically representing main events of project in both parallel and consecutive way. Events, which occur one after another, show dependency of the later event over the previous one.Critical Path Analysis

This tools is useful in recognizing interdependent tasks in the project. It also helps to find out the shortest path or critical path to complete the project successfully. Like PERT diagram, each event is allotted a specific time frame. This tool shows dependency of event assuming an event can proceed to next only if the previous one is completed.

The events are arranged according to their earliest possible start time. Path between start and end node is critical path which cannot be further reduced and all events require to be executed in same order.

Requirement Engineering(P8U2)

The process to gather the software requirements from client, analyze and document them is known as requirement engineering.

The goal of requirement engineering is to develop and maintain sophisticated and descriptive ‘System Requirements Specification’ document.

Requirement Engineering Process :

It is a four step process, which includes –

• Feasibility Study
• Requirement Gathering
• Software Requirement Specification
• Software Requirement Validation

Let us see the process briefly -

Feasibility study :

When the client approaches the organization for getting the desired product developed, it comes up with rough idea about what all functions the software must perform and which all features are expected from the software.

Referencing to this information, the analysts does a detailed study about whether the desired system and its functionality are feasible to develop.

This feasibility study is focused towards goal of the organization. This study analyzes whether the software product can be practically materialized in terms of implementation, contribution of project to organization, cost constraints and as per values and objectives of the organization. It explores technical aspects of the project and product such as usability, maintainability, productivity and integration ability.

The output of this phase should be a feasibility study report that should contain adequate comments and recommendations for management about whether or not the project should be undertaken.

Requirement Gathering :

If the feasibility report is positive towards undertaking the project, next phase starts with gathering requirements from the user. Analysts and engineers communicate with the client and end-users to know their ideas on what the software should provide and which features they want the software to include.

Software Requirement Specification :

SRS is a document created by system analyst after the requirements are collected from various stakeholders.

SRS defines how the intended software will interact with hardware, external interfaces, speed of operation, response time of system, portability of software across various platforms, maintainability, speed of recovery after crashing, Security, Quality, Limitations etc.

The requirements received from client are written in natural language. It is the responsibility of system analyst to document the requirements in technical language so that they can be comprehended and useful by the software development team.

SRS should come up with following features:

• User Requirements are expressed in natural language.
• Technical requirements are expressed in structured language, which is used inside the organization.
• Design description should be written in Pseudo code.
• Format of Forms and GUI screen prints.
• Conditional and mathematical notations for DFDs etc.

Software Requirement Validation :

After requirement specifications are developed, the requirements mentioned in this document are validated. User might ask for illegal, impractical solution or experts may interpret the requirements incorrectly. This results in huge increase in cost if not nipped in the bud. Requirements can be checked against following conditions -

• If they can be practically implemented
• If they are valid and as per functionality and domain of software
• If there are any ambiguities
• If they are complete
• If they can be demonstrated

 Requirement Elicitation Process (P9U2)

Requirement elicitation process can be depicted using the folloiwng diagram:

• Requirements gathering - The developers discuss with the client and end users and know their expectations from the software.
• Organizing Requirements - The developers prioritize and arrange the requirements in order of importance, urgency and convenience.

·        Negotiation & discussion - If requirements are ambiguous or there are some conflicts in requirements of various stakeholders, if they are, it is then negotiated and discussed with stakeholders. Requirements may then be prioritized and reasonably compromised.

The requirements come from various stakeholders. To remove the ambiguity and conflicts, they are discussed for clarity and correctness. Unrealistic requirements are compromised reasonably.

• Documentation - All formal & informal, functional and non-functional requirements are documented and made available for next phase processing.

Requirement Elicitation Techniques :

Requirements Elicitation is the process to find out the requirements for an intended software system by communicating with client, end users, system users and others who have a stake in the software system development.

There are various ways to discover requirements

Interviews-

Interviews are strong medium to collect requirements. Organization may conduct several types of interviews such as:

• Structured (closed) interviews, where every single information to gather is decided in advance, they follow pattern and matter of discussion firmly.
• Non-structured (open) interviews, where information to gather is not decided in advance, more flexible and less biased.
• Oral interviews
• Written interviews
• One-to-one interviews which are held between two persons across the table.
• Group interviews which are held between groups of participants. They help to uncover any missing requirement as numerous people are involved.

Surveys-

Organization may conduct surveys among various stakeholders by querying about their expectation and requirements from the upcoming system.

Questionnaires-

A document with pre-defined set of objective questions and respective options is handed over to all stakeholders to answer, which are collected and compiled.

A shortcoming of this technique is, if an option for some issue is not mentioned in the questionnaire, the issue might be left unattended.

Task analysis-\

Team of engineers and developers may analyze the operation for which the new system is required. If the client already has some software to perform certain operation, it is studied and requirements of proposed system are collected.

Domain Analysis-

Every software falls into some domain category. The expert people in the domain can be a great help to analyze general and specific requirements.

Brainstorming-

An informal debate is held among various stakeholders and all their inputs are recorded for further requirements analysis.

Prototyping-

Prototyping is building user interface without adding detail functionality for user to interpret the features of intended software product. It helps giving better idea of requirements. If there is no software installed at client’s end for developer’s reference and the client is not aware of its own requirements, the developer creates a prototype based on initially mentioned requirements. The prototype is shown to the client and the feedback is noted. The client feedback serves as an input for requirement gathering.

Observation-

Team of experts visit the client’s organization or workplace. They observe the actual working of the existing installed systems. They observe the workflow at client’s end and how execution problems are dealt. The team itself draws some conclusions which aid to form requirements expected from the software.

Software Requirements Characteristics :

Gathering software requirements is the foundation of the entire software development project. Hence they must be clear, correct and well-defined.

A complete Software Requirement Specifications must be:

• Clear
• Correct
• Consistent
• Coherent
• Comprehensible
• Modifiable
• Verifiable
• Prioritized
• Unambiguous
• Traceable
• Credible source

Software Requirements : (P10u2)

We should try to understand what sort of requirements may arise in the requirement elicitation phase and what kinds of requirements are expected from the software system.

Broadly software requirements should be categorized in two categories:

Functional Requirements:

Requirements, which are related to functional aspect of software fall into this category.

They define functions and functionality within and from the software system.

EXAMPLES -

• Search option given to user to search from various invoices.
• User should be able to mail any report to management.
• Users can be divided into groups and groups can be given separate rights.
• Should comply business rules and administrative functions.
• Software is developed keeping downward compatibility intact.

Non-Functional Requirements:

Requirements, which are not related to functional aspect of software, fall into this category. They are implicit or expected characteristics of software, which users make assumption of.

Non-functional requirements include -

• Security
• Logging
• Storage
• Configuration
• Performance
• Cost
• Interoperability
• Flexibility
• Disaster recovery
• Accessibility

Requirements are categorized logically as

• Must have : Software cannot be said operational without them.
• Should have : Enhancing the functionality of software.
• Could have : Software can still properly function with these requirements.
• Wish list : These requirements do not map to any objectives of software.

While developing software, ‘Must have’ must be implemented, ‘Should have’ is a matter of debate with stakeholders and negation, whereas ‘could have’ and ‘wish list’ can be kept for software updates.

User Interface requirements:

UI is an important part of any software or hardware or hybrid system. A software is widely accepted if it is -

• easy to operate
• quick in response
• effectively handling operational errors
• providing simple yet consistent user interface

User acceptance majorly depends upon how user can use the software. UI is the only way for users to perceive the system. A well performing software system must also be equipped with attractive, clear, consistent and responsive user interface. Otherwise the functionalities of software system can not be used in convenient way. A system is said be good if it provides means to use it efficiently. User interface requirements are briefly mentioned below -

·         Content presentation

·         Easy Navigation

·         Simple interface

·         Responsive

·         Consistent UI elements

·         Feedback mechanism

·         Default settings

·         various aspects of software process and software product. Purposeful layout

·         Strategical use of color and texture.

·         Provide help information

·         User centric approach

·         Group based view settings.

Software System Analyst:

System analyst in an IT organization is a person, who analyzes the requirement of proposed system and ensures that requirements are conceived and documented properly & correctly. Role of an analyst starts during Software Analysis Phase of SDLC. It is the responsibility of analyst to make sure that the developed software meets the requirements of the client.

System Analysts have the following responsibilities:

• Analyzing and understanding requirements of intended software
• Understanding how the project will contribute in the organization objectives
• Identify sources of requirement
• Validation of requirement
• Develop and implement requirement management plan
• Documentation of business, technical, process and product requirements
• Coordination with clients to prioritize requirements and remove and ambiguity
• Finalizing acceptance criteria with client and other stakeholders

Software Metrics and Measures:

Software Measures can be understood as a process of quantifying and symbolizing various attributes and aspects of software.

Software Metrics provide measures for

Software measures are fundamental requirement of software engineering. They not only help to control the software development process but also aid to keep quality of ultimate product excellent.

According to Tom DeMarco, a (Software Engineer), “You cannot control what you cannot measure.” By his saying, it is very clear how important software measures are.

Let us see some software metrics:

·        Size Metrics - LOC (Lines of Code), mostly calculated in thousands of delivered source code lines, denoted as KLOC.

Function Point Count is measure of the functionality provided by the software. Function Point count defines the size of functional aspect of software.

• Complexity Metrics - McCabe’s Cyclomatic complexity quantifies the upper bound of the number of independent paths in a program, which is perceived as complexity of the program or its modules. It is represented in terms of graph theory concepts by using control flow graph.

·        Quality Metrics - Defects, their types and causes, consequence, intensity of severity and their implications define the quality of product.

The number of defects found in development process and number of defects reported by the client after the product is installed or delivered at client-end, define quality  of product

 ·         Process Metrics - In various phases of SDLC, the methods and tools used, the company standards and the performance of development are software process metrics.

·         Resource Metrics - Effort, time and various resources used, represents metrics for resource measurement.