Managing Risk in Scrum: Risk Assessment
While Agile and Scrum are specifically targeted at minimizing risk, this does not mean that risk to any project can be ignored. The Scrum risk management process has much in common with most other risk management frameworks, and, if your company has adopted a specific framework, it is recommended that you align the Scrum risk management framework to that of your organisation. If you do not have a formal risk management framework in place, this is a straightforward process that has much in common with ISO 31000, although there is some variance in the grouping of the main activities, but not their content.
This is a description of the second sub-process of five – namely the assessing of risk.
The Scrum Risk Management Process
Risk management is an iterative process, which makes it easy to integrate into Scrum.
The process starts with the identification of a risk, which is reported in a suitable forum, like the daily stand-up meeting, although a risk can be identified and reported by anyone at any time. The severity of the risk then needs to be assessed. If one or more risks are reported in a standup meeting, it may be advisable to call a separate meeting for assessment and prioritization, for three main reasons:-
- The stand-up meeting is timeboxed to about 15 minutes and is just long enough for the team to report on their daily progress, while assessing a single risk could easily take 15 minutes.
- The Product Owner is an optional attendee of the stand-up meetings and is expected to act as an observer, rather than an active participant when he does attend. However, he also has responsibility for risk assessment and prioritization.
- It is quite possible that assessing the risk requires input from one or more stakeholders, who would not be at the standup meeting.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course:
Course Contents
Section 1: Agile Project Management
Section 2: Using the Agile Manifesto to Deliver Change
Section 3: The 12 Agile Principles
Section 4: The Agile Fundamentals
Section 5: The Declaration of Interdependence
Section 6: Agile Development Frameworks
Section 7: Introduction to Scrum
Section 8: Scrum Projects
Section 9: Scrum Project Roles
Section 10: Meet the Scrum Team
Section 11: Building the Scrum Team
Section 12: Scrum in Projects, Programs & Portfolios
Section 13: How to Manage an Agile Project
Section 14: Leadership Styles
Section 15: The Agile Project Life-cycle
Section 16: Business Justification with Agile
Section 17: Calculating the Benefits With Agile
Section 18: Quality in Agile
Section 19: Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 20: Quality Management in Scrum
Section 21: Change in Scrum
Section 22: Integrating Change in Scrum
Section 23: Managing Change in Scrum
Section 24: Risk in Scrum
Section 25: Risk Assessment Techniques
Section 26: Initiating an Agile Project
Section 27: Forming the Scrum Team
Section 28: Epics and Personas
Section 29: Creating the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 30: Conduct Release Planning
Section 31: The Project Business Case
Section 32: Planning in Scrum
Section 33: Scrum Boards
Section 34: Sprint Planning
Section 35: User Stories
Section 36: User Stories and Tasks
Section 37: The Sprint Backlog
Section 38: Implementation of Scrum
Section 39: The Daily Scrum
Section 40: The Product Backlog
Section 41: Scrum Charts
Section 42: Review and Retrospective
Section 43: Scrum of Scrums
Section 44: Validating a Sprint
Section 45: Retrospective Sprint
Section 46: Releasing the Product
Section 47: Project Retrospective
Section 48: The Communication Plan
Section 49: Formal Business Sign-off
Section 50: Scaling Scrum
Section 51: Stakeholders
Section 52: Programs and Portfolios