An Acquisition Process for the Management of Nontechnical Risks Associated with Software Development
Abstract
The ability to quantify risk is essential to the process of budgeting and scheduling. During the process of hiring to complete specified tasks, customers must be able to verify contractor estimates and to make sound judgments on the risks of cost overruns and time delays. The following questions are central to this paper. Do developers with little experience overestimate or underestimate the complexity of the task because of their experience, the assumptions they make, the models they select, or how they define the model limits? What are the sources of risk associated with project cost estimation? How can such risk be quantified? This article proposes a systematic acquisition process aimed at assessing and managing the risks of cost overruns and time delays associated with software development. The authors propose an acquisition process of four phases grounded on three basic premises: (1) any single-value estimate of cost or completion time is inadequate to capture and represent the variability and uncertainty associated with cost and schedule; (2) the common expected value, when used as a measure of risk, is inadequate, and if it is used as the sole measure of risk, it may lead to inaccurate results; (3) probing the sources of risks and uncertainties associated with cost overruns and time delays in software development is essential for the ultimate management of technical and nontechnical risks. This article is based on a technical report published by the Software Engineering Institute in 1993.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1995
- Accession Number
- ADA489173
Entities
People
- Clyde Chittister
- Yacov Y. Haimes
Organizations
- University of Virginia