Information Technologies

Published 21 Dec 2016

Risk management is one of the prime components for success in IT projects. As Chapman (1997) mentions that wherever money is involved risk comes in hand with. The vary existence of the association of resources to get a job done comes in hand with various forms of risk that can also be termed as fear of loss and in hinders the loss of time, effort and money.

Risk must be taken as a separate department in the organization that must identify the very existence of risk in all activities of the organization with relation to internal and external elements. Risk identification and strategy for its existence must be made aware to the organization connected with implementing large IT projects. Once the identification of risks is made the very dynamic and coherent nature of the resources are taken into account. At this point one must determine the specific risks associated with it and would also provide the feedback for the mitigation of the risk. Large IT projects include several variables that have a direct or indirect impact on the project costs, time, people and other variables.

Risk can be further viewed as a life cycle for which one requires to plan, design and effectively operate the project so that the finished product is obtained within the proposed time and effort. The process in the mitigation of risks can be obtained as follows: Identify the key stakeholders of the system and assign the strategy steps in getting the job done.

Make a plan to operate the risk so that proper action is taken before the thing can go wrong

Maintaining swift communication among the key stakeholders would make sure that effective identification of risks are done uniformly and correct adherence to it is made possible

The key people involved in risk mitigation in a large IT project are the project managers, domain experts and IT analysts. Project managers must identify what can go wrong before it actually does. They are extensively responsible to check the project schedule, decide costs based on the market inputs and turbulence manages resources and serves as a communication agent to all the resources. Risk is involved to a great extent in all these phases and makes sure that resource utilization is optimum. Domain experts make sure that correct business knowledge is inputted to the IT project and it requires being correct in all aspects. Any form of ambiguous knowledge would pose a risk to an IT project’s validation and verification process.

The IT analyst would make sure that he is “one who has been there, done it”. Until the background knowledge and expertise is put forward to a great extent, the implementation of things becomes challenging to the various factors in the environment.

Keeping all the key stakeholders in the loop would ensure that effective communication flows within the system and any risks can be handled with successful collaboration among the teams. The project must have checkpoints and milestones which take into account all the successful combination of communications made among the various key stakeholders of the system as mentioned by Kerzner (1998). The various components of an IT project namely project resources like people, technical and schedule resources would be made possible with the use of expertise and skill. IT project implementation takes into account the involvement of several stages that ensures the building of the ultimate software. Every step has risks associated with it and appropriate risk management would be possible only if enough skill and expertise is blended with effective communication channels among the team members.

The following are the steps which can be accounted for risk mitigation techniques:

  1. Mapping out the risk process is the primary step
  2. Building risk modules and checking whether its effective or not
  3. Evaluate it with the options available
  4. Implement and constantly check for its correct adherence and actions
  5. Review for successful encompassing of environmental factors
  6. Keeping in momentum with changes in the organization

The above discussed factors make sure that risk is managed in an effective manner to satisfy the client with the timely and correct delivery of the product.

References

  • Chapman, C.B. and Ward, Stephen (1997). Project Risk Management- Processes, Techniques And Insights. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons.
  • Kerzner, Harold (1998). Project Management- A Systems Approach To Planning, Scheduling, And Controlling. Sixth Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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