Risk management in agile methods: a study of DSDM in practice

Abstract

Businesses are increasingly operating in extremely turbulent environments necessitating the need to respond and adapt to change more quickly and improve overall time to market. From an Information Systems Development perspective this has triggered a new wave of development, the most notable of these being agile methods. A principle objective of agile methods is to reduce well-known risks associated with common ISD project failures. While there is extensive academic literature on risk management and its growing importance in ISD, literature in relation to risk management in agile ISD projects is still in infancy. The purpose of this research was to ascertain the extent to which risk management practices are incorporated into agile development projects. The methodology deployed for this research involved a case study of a change management consultancy firm dedicated to the use of the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM).