Managing Risks in a Technology Landscape

Common risks

There are various aspects of software and hardware development that are common in the industry but less so in other professions. These relate to the development process itself. Let’s take a look at a typical software development life cycle (SDLC) and discuss the common risks that arise at each stage:

Software development life cycle (SDLC)

The SDLC is the series of steps or processes involved in software development. This cycle can be adapted to any style of development, including waterfall and agile methodologies. The steps may vary or happen in mini-cycles within the larger cycle, but the steps are always present in some way. Let’s explore each one.

Requirements phase

We’ve already talked about the requirements phase in various forms in this course. In general, the focus of the requirements phase is to reduce overall risk by bringing clarity to the requirements. The clearer the requirements, the less room there will be for scope creep in low-level designs and their implementation. In that sense, the main risk in this step is a lack of clarity.

Design phase

The design phase is where the high-level and low-level designs are drafted based on the requirements. ...