Practical insight about risk management process in agile software projects in Norway

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to provide practical insight about risk management process in agile projects in software industry in Norway. To achieve the purpose, we conducted qualitative study. We discussed with practitioners methods to handle risks and risk sharing mechanism in contracts. Interview findings revealed that almost all practitioners handle risk like traditional waterfall approach. All major risks are listed in matrix form. These risks are monitored continuously during entire development process and their probability of occurrence is assessed. At next step, mitigation plan is designed according to their probability of occurrence. Estimation risks are mitigated using relative estimates. Other ways to handle risks include keeping the sprint/iteration shorter and SWOT analysis. In most projects, risk sharing between supplier and customer is not defined in the contracts. It is assumed that for fixed price contracts risk lies on supplier side, for time and material contacts most of the risk lies towards customer side. While target price contracts provide some kind of risk sharing mechanism between supplier and customer.