This document contains the key notes/points/script for the Milestone I presentation in regards to risks and risk management. Use the final copy of the proposal document for reference.
What are the risks
We are carefully considering all risks of the project. The top risks is in 4 categories: management risks, hardware risks, software risks, and legacy risks.
Hardware Risks
We ranked risks involving drones as highest priority because the hardware is very fragile. A single crash of the drone could result in total loss — with little chance of receiving extra budget.
Management Risks
Management risks include non-technical risks such as team management, time management, and development methodology risks.
The top most risk is not enough time contributed by teammates, with uniform work contributed.
Legacy Risks
Because the project is to be used for the long term by the client for research and development. We want to make sure the the project deliverable has acceptable longevity.
What if certain part on the drone require maintenance or replacement?
What if the radio or the transmitter doesn’t work
What if X doesn’t work? What if Y breaks?
Software Risks
Technical debt due to poorly implemented features. Insufficient document from libraries.
Lowest risk in terms of severity to the project. Because
- The software / netlist is not the top priority in terms of requirement for the client
- Software has workarounds that is much easier than hardware or other risks
- Software is cheap
How we manage risks
We use a risk profile table.
Each week the matrix is updated: new potential risks is added to the matrix along with their likelihood and impact. We carefully consider these metrics as it will affect how much effort we are putting in into strategies to mitigate the risks with high severity.
If the risk index is greater than 0.4, we will actively follow the risk mitigation protocol: which involves triaging tasks related to mitigate the risk on Trello.
Risk index less than 0.4 are monitored, but not actively mitigated due to time constraints.
For each of the aforementioned categories of risks, there are their own risk mitigation overall strategies:
Hardware
We are actively trying to mitigate these risks by:
Safety protocol such as only attaching the propellers to the drone as the last task when the drone absolutely ready for take off is an example that must be followed every time.
Management
Clear and effective communication and management strategies such as weekly standups, WSRs, and scrum boards are used to manage these risks
Legacy
We will mitigate by actively updating the specification documents, operation manual, etc.
We will not leave these document as a last-minute consideration. These documents are to be updated in parallel as we continue with our development.
Software
Use version tracking and code review.
Consult client, experts, or the internet