A case study of risk management in agile systems development
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Date
2009-06-08Author
Coyle, Sharon
Conboy, Kieran
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Coyle S, Conboy K (2009) A case study of risk management in agile systems development. In 17th European Conference on Information Systems (Newell S, Whitley EA, Pouloudi N, Wareham J, Mathiassen L eds.), 2567-2578, Verona, Italy.
Abstract
A principal objective of agile development methods is to reduce risk thereby resulting in more
successful and effective information systems. However, while there is an extensive body of academic
literature on risk management, very little research has attempted to rigorously apply this as a lens to
study risk management in agile development projects. The purpose of this research was to ascertain
the extent to which risk management practices are incorporated into agile development projects. A
case study was conducted involving a change management consultancy firm whose main business
involved the deployment of agile approaches. The study found that while there is a perception that risk
management practices are not carried out in agile environments, the extent to which risk management
is conducted on these projects is in some cases just as substantial to that carried out on traditional
projects. In fact, in this case it appeared that the teams were more rigorous in their risk management
than is often the case.