Capturing Risks in Agile Methods

Risk management is an important process in Software Engineering. However, it can be perceived as contrary to the more
lightweight processes used in Agile methods. Thus an appropriate and realistic risk management model is required as well as tool support that minimizes human effort. The Agile Risk Tool (ART) uses software agents to carry out risk management tasks and makes use of the data collected from the project environment to detect risks. This paper describes the underlying risk management model in ART and uses two case studies for evaluation. The results show that agents are of use for detecting risk and reacting dynamically to changes in project environment. Within the tool, risk data was collected and stored in a Risk Register. For ongoing assessment of risk a new measure, Total Risk Score (TRS) has been developed related to the Risk severity, the risk results later was assessed and presented in form of graphs.