Risk associated with software development: a holistic framework for assessment and management

This paper focuses on the software development process and proposes a framework for the assessment and management of risk associated with this process. The proposed framework is grounded on a holistic concept termed hierarchical holographic modeling, where more than one perspective or vision of the risk associated with software development is analyzed. Three perspectives, or decompositions, are introduced: (1) functional decomposition, which encompasses seven basic attributes associated with software development-requirement, product, process, people, management, environment, and system development; (2) source-based decomposition, which relates to the four sources of failure - hardware, software, organizational, and human; and (3) temporal decomposition, which relates to the stages in the software development process. Problems encountered at each level of the hierarchical holographic submodels are addressed. Once the “universe” of risk-based problems has been identified, then a risk ranking method is applied to provide priorities among them. Special attention is given to the role of human resource development and improvement in risk assessment