Effective risk management in software development project using different methodologies - Dissertation Example

It was believed that this approach will help to elucidate some of the main practices of risk assessment within the software would industry in the United Kingdom The specific objectives of this research were as follows: 1. To determine what approaches to risk management were most common among respondents 2. To identify differences or similarities between the perspectives of participants and those in the literature 3. To examine how effective risk mitigation was for participants The mixed methods approach involved the use of one quantitative and one qualitative technique.

The qualitative technique that was determined was an open-ended, one-on-one interview which was carried out with participants from a range of different software companies. In addition to the qualitative component of this study a small, quantitative questionnaire was also developed and distributed to people within the organisations of the qualitative participants. This questionnaire contained shorter versions of some of the questions covered in the qualitative interview. The purpose of this was to access a wider pool of participants than would be possible for the qualitative interview. . Additionally, if probability sampling methods are used, the outcomes from a quantitative study can often be extended to a large population, while a qualitative study does not have the same level of applicability.

Thus, a quantitative study might be able to determine that group A was statistically more likely to use the waterfall risk management approach, while a qualitative approach would be able to provide an indication about what people thought about risk management approaches, and why a particular one was preferable. 3.1.1 Qualitative Interviews Qualitative research is a form of research that considers the perspectives and opinions of participants, often through approaches such as interviews or focus groups.

A substantial amount of information can be gathered through qualitative research, however, it also tends to be more time consuming. Because of this, qualitative approaches are often used for studies where the opinions of participants is of particular importance, or the area of the study is small (Leedy and Ormrod, 2004). It makes use of non-probability methods of sampling, which means that it is difficult to extrapolate the results of a study to a wider population (Sarantakos, 2005). Interviews are an approach to qualitative research that allows for a lot of information to be gathered from participants (Trochim and Donnelly, 2007) .

Interviews frequently make use of a mixture of questions that are closed and open-ended (Gillham, 2005). This approach is effective, because it allows the interviewer to guide the progress of the interview, and ensure that the desired questions are answered, while at the same time