Unit 13: Risk Methods

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Unit 13 Risk Methods

• CSEM04 Risk and Opportunities of Systems Change
  in Organisations
• Dr Lynne Humphries
• Prof. Helen M Edwards

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Unit 13 Risk Methods

• CSEM04 Risk and Opportunities of Systems Change
  in Organisations
• Dr Lynne Humphries
• Prof. Helen M Edwards

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Overview

• The Concepts of Risk Management Methods
• Risk generic lifecycle
• Risk Methods
• Risk Techniques
• Example methods
• Riskit
• SERUM
• RAMESES

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The Concepts of Risk Management Methods

• Aimed at controlling risk during a specific
  project.
• Project stakeholders should have input.
• Often difficult to evaluate risks quantitatively
• therefore need to cater for qualitative risk
  assessment.
• Participant communication is essential.

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Risk generic lifecycle

• Risk methods have typical lifecycle
• Assumption that cycle is iterative.
• Throughout a project there may be many iterations
  of the lifecycle.

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Risk generic lifecycle

• In practice
• BEFORE project starts
• First cycle completes all but last step
• From
• goal definition
• to
• allocating budget levels

Allocating budget levels
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Risk generic lifecycle

• Once project underway
• Start continual risk monitoring

• In practice this means moving round the risk
  cycle iteratively.

• How this is managed depends on
• the risk management or
• project management method
• used.

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Method versus Technique

• Risk Methods provide frameworks and procedures
  (or process models) to follow to help manage the
  control of risks in a project.
• Risk Techniques are small scale approaches that
  enable you to do some small scale task.
• We have looked at some specific risk
  identification and analysis techniques within the
  module.
• We will now have a brief overview of some
  specific risk methods.

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The Riskit Method
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The Riskit Method and its Life Cycle
The focus in typical risk methods
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Where does it fit?

• Focuses on risk management during systems
  development.
• Why is it needed?
• To manage risks explicitly.
• To keep project focused on its goal.

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Techniques in Riskit
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Summary of Techniques
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Goal and stakeholder driven identification

• A simple technique to rank the identified goals
  within each stakeholder.
• N.B. Comparison cannot be made across rows (or
  goals)
• Different stakeholders may be of different
  priority/importance in the project .

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Risk Analysis Graph(example from the Riskit
Manual)
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Risk scenario rankingUsing Pareto-efficient sets
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Risk element review
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Riskit controlling action taxonomy.
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The SERUM Method
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SERUM Method
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SERUM

• Premise Change is inevitable for all commercial
  software systems
• For any application, there will be many potential
  changes.
• Approach tackle those changes that provide the
  best cost-benefit ratio.
• But there is risk associated with any change. In
  particular technical risk and development risk,

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SERUM Change Priority

• Priority of change is expressed as a function of
  five variables.
• risk exposure in the current system,
• risk exposure in the proposed system,
• risk exposure in the implementation of a change
• cost of a defined change
• benefit of a defined change

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Method Composition

• Soft Systems Methodology - Checkland
• used in step 1 through to step 5

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Method Composition

• Evolutionary Development - Gilb
• used in steps 6-9 and afterwards (outcomes from
  steps)

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SSM in SERUM Business analysis of the system

• provides a set of recommendations for change
  (organisational and/or technological).
• the recommendations define the gap between the
  current and the ideal model.
• may identify major changes to an existing way of
  working.
• Risk is associated with the disruption to the
  organisation.

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Evolutionary development plan the implementation
of changes

• Parts of a system are implemented and delivered
  in phases.
• Each part is evaluated by the client
• The feedback is used in implementing subsequent
  phases.

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SERUM and systems change

• Users/decision makers involved in
• SSM aspects
• not in Evolutionary development aspect.
• But
• to control project when using evolutionary
  approach ask for measurable goals from
  developers (whether internal or external).
• Should use a two way mechanism.

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The RAMESES Method
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Where does it fit?

• Focuses on risk of systems change.
• Why is it needed?
• Do IT systems always to live up to expectation?
• Do IT systems always fit how the business
  operates?
• Systems Specification is hard.
• Two aspects of change Business process and IT
  systems.
• Expected RAMESES to be used
• Before a project gets underway
• After a project has happened as part of
  post-implementation review.

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RAMESESFramework
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Components of RAMESES

• Data collection (auditing)
• System specification
• Analysis (comparisons, gaps)
• Risk assessment (gauges)

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Risk Gauges

• RG1 Change Consensus
• purpose to assess agreement among the Senior
  Management team (SMT).
• RG2 Change Context
• purpose to assess the SMTs perception of the
  context of the proposed changes.
• purpose to assess the SMTs perception of past
  company experience.

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RG1 Change Consensus

• Identified change
• Implementation of new ERP system to replace
  packages currently used with an integrated
  solution
• Justification of need for change
• Our system is out of date and difficult to
  maintain
• and
• We know we are not operating at best efficiency
  and wish to investigate further.
• Consensus among SMT
• Strongly Agree 2, Agree 1, No view 1,
  Disagree 0

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RG2 Change Context

• Considers
• Project Timescale
• Project Scope
• Nature of Project
• Cost of Project