• “Will the software be delivered on time, or at all?”
   

• “Will it be delivered within budget?”
   

• “Will it satisfy our business needs and be of sufficient quality?”

Sources of risk include:

• Size and Scope
   

• Personnel
   

• Technology
   

• Management

• Software Completion Scorecard - Determine the likelihood of delivering the software within the proposed constraints, or of delivering it at all, and present a software completion scorecard. The software completion scorecard describes the probability of satisfying each of the key completion criteria.

Case Study

“Autos-R-Us Customer and Dealership Management Software”

This case study presents some of the important issues associated with determining a Software Completion Guarantee for the delivery of state-of-the-art software supporting: a client/server architecture, Internet based communication, Web based GUI and Object Oriented development methods.

Synopsis

Autos-R-Us, a successful nation wide car-hire business, requires new ‘state-of-the-art’ software to provide services to its customers. Their chosen software supplier, A1 Software, has completed a software requirements specification and has provided delivery dates and costs for the proposed software.

Autos-R-Us want confirmation that the software can be successfully delivered on time as they need to commit to an extensive media marketing campaign to advertise the new services their software will support. In addition, they do not want actual software costs to exceed predictions and invalidate their business case.

They chose to obtain an independent Software Completion Guarantee to find this out.

Assessment and Risk Identification

• Software Requirements Specification Status

The specification is generally of a high standard and all stakeholders have been involved in its development. It is therefore not expected to change substantially during the project.

However, issues requiring clarification, include:

"Are the functions for maintaining dealership information within the scope of the new application?”

“Must each of the required report formats be implemented within the application or will a third party report generator tool be used?”

“How will functionality be distributed between the client and server?”

Risks:

Clarifying these requirements may increase the software’s size and complexity and therefore affect the schedule and budget.

• Software Size and Scope

Functional sizing determines the software to be 1,850 function points.

Risks:

Software of between 1,000 and 5,000 function points has a cancellation rate of around 25%.

Careful assessment of the client’s expectations of the GUI is required. For example, extensive use of drop-down lists can increase the function point count over conventional interfaces while the use of multimedia sound and video can increase its complexity.

• Environmental Attributes

The organisation profile indicates that A1 are experienced and successful software developers.

Technical Risks:

The use of new technologies including: Object Oriented development and Internet based communication with which A1, and the software industry in general, have only limited experience may impact negatively upon the schedule and budget.

Management Risks:

A1’s limited use of automated project and resource tracking tools reduces the likelihood of early identification of schedule and therefore cost overruns.

Their reliance upon informal quality assurance and testing procedures is likely to increase the number of delivered defects.

Results

• Organisation Profile

A1 can alleviate the management risks by instigating formal management procedures and introducing some high quality project management tools. To alleviate the technical risks A1 should ensure that their developers obtain adequate training in the new technologies and should consider a pilot project using those technologies.

• Key Completion Criteria Comparison

• Software Completion Guarantee

Successful Delivery:

Industry data indicates that software of similar size has a 25% probability of cancellation. However, in this case, the probability of cancellation is reduced by the following:

• A1’s organisation profile indicates experienced and skilled software developers.

If A1 instigate the necessary actions to alleviate the identified technical and management risks, the probability of cancellation can be reduced even further.

Software Completion Scorecard:

Schedule and Cost:

The scorecard indicates that A1’s proposed schedule and cost estimates fit within the expected ranges. There is some chance, however, of a schedule overrun.

Quality:

A1’s required defect level, on the other hand, is unrealistic, especially given that the project involves the use of relatively new and untested technology. This defect level is unlikely to be achieved even with the introduction of formal testing and quality assurance techniques.