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11 - PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT

Adaptive life cycle projects allow for frequent reassessment of risks and reprioritization at the end of each
iteration, which can take advantage of newly identified opportunities to add features or take action to mitigate
newly identified risks. The project team can add risk avoidance and risk reduction actions into the backlog and
choose to proactively attack the risks before they have an impact on the project. The team should think of risk
avoidance and risk mitigation as part of the value proposition for the adaptive planning cycle.

11.1.3 Plan Risk Management: Outputs

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The output for planning risk management in Section 11.1.3 of the PMBOK Guide is an applicable output for
planning software project risk management, with the following extensions.

11.1.3.1 Risk Management Plan

See Section 11.1.3.1 of the PMBOK Guide.
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In addition, when planning for the next iteration of an adaptive life cycle, the project team typically balances
delivering business value with risk reduction. Sometimes the team may select a next feature to be implemented 11
that has the best return on investment. Sometimes they will undertake an action to avoid or mitigate risk since the
impact of the risk occurring would be greater than the ROI value of the next feature in the product feature set, as
depicted in Figure 11-2.

Yesterday

Daily
Product Impediments Standup Today
Feature
Set
Product
Feature
Set Risk Risk
Iteration Design
Feature Product
Risk Risk Set Increment

Risk Iterate
Test Build
Risk Iteration Iteration
Assessment Planning Review

Figure 11-2. Business and Risk Reduction Activities Prioritized in the Product Feature Set

©2013 Project Management Institute. Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition 195
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