Application of risk management to software projects for software process improvement
A project on risk-driven software process improvement (DriveSPI) has produced a set of methodological guidelines on how to apply risk management to software projects and developed its use for software process improvement. The project has successfully demonstrated that risk management is a key issue for software process improvement. The project was carried out by software developers from France and Finland, with funding from the EU's ESPRIT programme for research in the field of Information Technologies. The aim of the project was to integrate risk management methodology (based on RISKMAN software) into the assessment framework (based on BOOTSTRAP, a software process assessment methodology). The BOOTSTRAP method provides the basis for process assessment and improvement support, while the DriveSPI guidelines provide a compliant and complementary risk assessment. Results from the project include the following: - Definition of the risk management process, therefore extending a software process assessment methodology to risk management issues; - Putting risk management into practice; - Providing easy access to best practices on software risk management; - Enhancing the general risk management methodology and the software tool RISKMAN; - Provision of methodological on-line help for RISKMAN software.