Risks Involved When Producing a Piece of Application Software, Essay Example

Accounting software is very important to any organization since it mainly deals with the financial resources. There are however, several failures and risks encountered in the system due to faults in the software itself. Failures range from a complete system crashing to production of wrong information. Production of wrong information means an adverse effect on the confidence of individuals or organization. The risks threaten software quality hence it is necessary to identify and control the risks. Another risk involved is inadequate testing. When this occurs, the system will eventually crash or may not produce desired results. This proper operation of the software may not be known until the time when a customer comes to complain or when the system crashes completely. Other risks involved include cost overruns, high maintenance costs, error prone modules and low quality and schedule pressure. Such pressures may lead to production of sub-standard software that may not perform the intended work.

Assessment and how to respond to project risks

The risks involved should be properly assessed so that they can be mitigated before the commencement of any project. Adequate testing of the software should be done. Testing should be done early, retest after changes or fixes and plan for enough time to fix bugs and test. The risks can also be controlled through adherence to requirement specifications and introducing proper change process. A decision should be made on the timing, actions to be taken that better address the issues, information required to ensure effective software is produced, and the importance of each of the arising issues. Adequate resources should be allocated for risk management. This will help to develop a plan to take action and assign responsibility for the purpose of addressing and monitoring risks encountered.