This is a reaction to ‘Agile Risk Management’ on NOOP.nl.

Jurgen writes:

Do the agile methods have anything to say about such problems?

(In our case) nothing useful!

Sure they do. Some examples:

Agile implies involving the customer in a far more rigid way than ‘traditional’ software development. If you work in iterations and involve the customer in every step, you know really quick if you’re on the right track.

A product owner (in Scrum) could have helped to communicate the requirements/user stories between the customer and the team.

A sprint review could have helped to manage expectations of the customer, and to help the customer ’steer’ the project. Short iterations and getting feedback often helps to build the right things.

Jurgen: I think that’s strange, because Risk Management is nothing more than a simple approach of managing potential problems that are not addressed by the standard processes, and that usually find their roots in unforeseen circumstances.

‘Risk management’ looks like a heavy tool to me. Unforeseen circumstances are always luring around the corner. Life consists of unforeseen circumstances. There are not many people who can look into the future.

The Agile methods acknowledge this, and build their processes around continuous change. That’s why ‘risk management’ is not important anymore. Change is not risk, because it will happen 100% of the time. That’s why you have short iterations, involvement of the customer, and other practices.

Communication is the most important aspect for a project’s success!

My take: with Agile (or Lean) Software Development, you don’t need risk management processes. In Lean terms, it is ‘waste’. If you think you need it, revisit your existing Agile processes and try to improve them. Adding extra processes is certainly not going to help, because you need to fix the root cause. Ask ‘Why’ 5 times.

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