Change Risk Assessment: Understanding Risks Involved in Changing Software Requirements

One certainty in software development is that all projects will have to deal with change. Being able to effectively handle proposed changes is crucial for allowing continued development of a software project to occur. To effectively manage change, developers must assess the risks involved in making the change. To understand the risks, the project manager must determine how the change will affect the entire project. These risks may affect a project’s schedule, budget, and quality factors. This paper identifies risks associated with late changes to the software requirements. Late changes are those changes that occur after one cycle of the development process has been completed. It is important to understand late changes, because they often result in the most cost to an ongoing development project both in time and money. In this paper we identify several key risks that must be addressed when dealing with late changes to requirements.