Foundations for Architecting Data Solutions

Chapter 3. Managing Risk in Data Projects

Humans excel at worrying about things, but normally we worry about the wrong things. As a child, Ted wasted what should have been many hours of sleep on planning an escape route when zombies attacked. People fear a lot of things that, whether grounded in reality or not, will most likely never affect them. A perfect example is that people are more afraid of sharks or terrorist attacks, when the chances of dying from heart disease or a car accident are significantly higher.

This is also true when it comes to software development. Identifying what to worry about and what to not worry about is an extremely powerful practice when implementing successful projects, especially when you’re working with new technologies. If managed properly, risk can be an opportunity—if everything was known at the start of a project, what would be the fun in that?

In this chapter, we discuss how to manage risk after completing the software selection process and moving on to implementing a project. The focus of this chapter is on helping you set up methodologies and an environment for success by using development principles and strategies for managing and mitigating risk, setting realistic expectations, and providing a guide to building successful teams.

Categories of Risk

Before we delve into the details of risk management, let’s first talk about the broad categories of risk that we want to address in project planning.

Technology Risk

Any software project involves ...