Risk Management

Risk: An unexpected hazard or event or a chance of injury.

Risk Management : The process of controlling risk and monitoring the effectiveness of the control mechanism is called risk management. It involves few steps like

• Risk Identification
• Risk Analysis
• Risk Mitigation or Control

Risk Identification: Risk identification is the first step in risk management. We need to identify both project and product risk by using certain techniques. Some of the most common techniques which can be applied to identify different risks are using risk templates, interviewing the stakeholders, project retrospectives etc.

Risk Analysis: Risk analysis is the next step of risk management. In risk analysis we study the risks identified is the identification phase and estimate the level of risk. We first have to categorize the risks and then need to determine the level of risk by specifying impact of the risk. It is process of estimating and evaluating the level of Risk identified.

Risk Mitigation and Control: The third step in the risk management is risk mitigation or risk control. After assessing the risk in your project you must control them. You can use options like mitigation, contingency to control the risks.

There are two types of Risks

• Product Risks 
• Project Risks

Product Risks: These are potential failure areas in the software as they are risk to the Quality. Example for product risks are

• Error prone Software delivered
• This software would cause harm to an individual or company
• Poor software characteristics such as functionalities, security, reliability, usability and performance
• Software does not perform it’s intended function

Project Risk: These are related projects capability to deliver. Example for project risks are

• Oraganizational factors  like skill and staff shortages, few personal and training issues and political issues etc. Testers have problems in communicating their need and test results.
• Improper attitude towards or Expectations of Testing like if are not appreciating the value of finding defects.
• Supply issues like failure of third party contractual issues
• Technical issues like problems in defining the right requirements and extending that requirement specifications can  be given existing constraints. The quality of the design code and test also comes under this technical issues.

Risk based testing is basically a testing done for the project based on risks. Risk based testing uses risk to prioritize and emphasize the appropriate tests during test execution. In simple terms. Risk is the probability of occurrence of an undesirable outcome. This outcome is also associated with an impact. Since there might not be sufficient time to test all functionality, Risk based testing involves testing the functionality which has the highest impact and probability of failure.

Risk-based testing is the idea that we can organize our testing efforts in a way that reduces the residual level of product risk when the system is deployed.

• Risk-based testing starts early in the project, identifying risks to system quality and using that knowledge of risk to guide test planning, specification, preparation and execution.
• Risk-based testing involves both mitigation testing to provide opportunities to reduce the occurring of defects, especially high-impact defects and contingency testing to identify work to make the defects to reduce their impact in effecting the business.
• Risk-based testing also involves measuring how well we are doing at finding and removing defects in critical areas.
• Risk-based testing can also involve using risk analysis to identify proactive opportunities to remove or prevent defects through non-testing activities and to help us select which test activities to perform.

The goal of risk-based testing cannot practically be a risk-free project. What we can get from risk-based testing is to carry out the testing with best practices in risk management to achieve a project outcome that balances risks with factors  quality, features, budget and schedule.

How to perform risk based testing?

• Make a prioritized list of risks.
• Perform testing that explores each risk.
• As risks evaporate and new ones occur, adjust your test effort to stay focused on the current item.