How to Handle Development Risks in an Agile Environment

​If you are going to invest in a mobile application project, there are going to be a few hiccups that you will face during the development phase. It depends on the project, the kind of risks that you may encounter while developing the app. There are five types of development risks that you could face: 

1. The risk of overshooting the budget that was planned during the initial stages of development. This could delay or at times even be the reason that application never makes it to the market.
2. The risk of losing or absence of human resources. If the team that is assigned is not punctual or take too many leaves, it results with the app being delayed which in return leaves a cascading effect on other factors such as time, budget and productivity.
3. The risk of limited knowledge exchange and miscommunication within the team. When certain app technicians do not want to share knowledge or the codes that they are working on, they create a knowledge vacuum which will affect the development of the app.
4. The risk of low productivity can be predicted in long term projects. When there are no deadline crunches, there is no urgency of work – this leads to the resources working on the app to not put in as much effort or work time as required.
5. The risk of overshooting deadlines due to lack of time management. This is ideally the result of poor planning, unrealistic timelines or inability of catching up with the changing product requirements. 

Agile Development to the Rescue

 
The agile methodology touches upon various risks. That said, there are a lot of instances where agile environments are not able to overcome these risk factors, mainly due to, mistakes made by team members, errors made in the planning stage and unexpected changes if the product evolves.
Let’s take a look at each software development risk and how it can be managed to mitigate delays, mistakes and other barriers to releasing a successful application.

Risk: Overshooting the Budget

Solution: Rolling Wave Plan

During the production of the app, you cannot be firm on the assumptions that you’ve made. This means that as the app development progresses, the objectives or the goals of the app may change or the product may need to pivot as per the market demands.
Rolling wave planning is the solution to this issue. Ideally, during the planning stage, the team makes basic product decisions at that particular time rather than making very detailed plans at the beginning of the project. Hence, the project can evolve at its own pace keeping into account the feedback received from various sources. This means that as per the new knowledge received, the product can be developed – saving time and resources required for re-planning.
The rolling wave planning hence, keeps the budget in check. Although, you must remember that it is absolutely essential to make a budgeting plan for the entire scope of the project. It is important to have a clear understanding of what the app is going to offer and the entire cost involved in supporting that functionality.

Risk: Losing or Absence of Human Resources and Limited Knowledge Exchange

Solution: Squad-based Development

A squad is a group of 10-12 people who are co-located teams that are involved in planning the app, sharing knowledge, completing code reviews and working together. This squad sticks together from the beginning of the project till the app is released in the market.
Squad based development eliminates the risk of knowledge silos as there is an open flow of knowledge. So even if a resource is absent or leaves the project, the other team member can take on the task, thus, avoiding the vacuum that gets created otherwise.

Risk: Low Productivity

Solution: Sprint Based Development

Scrum, as we know, is a specialised agile method that uses the term Sprint for its iterations. Basically, one development cycle in scrum is called a sprint. So, sprints are iterative development phases that are created to produce a demo version of the product within a particular timeframe, i.e. mostly two-three weeks.
This means that if there is a long term project, this method can avoid low productivity by giving the team members of the app a short term goal. This adds a sense of urgency, thereby, maintaining velocity by diving work into smaller and manageable tasks.

Risk: Overshooting Deadlines (Time)

Solution: Process

The risk of overshooting deadlines generally occurs if the team is constantly looking for “perfection”, gaps in the project management plan or a rigid development process. Keeping the process flexible is best way of dealing with time risk.
It is important that the team is flexible so that they can adapt to the changing needs of the product, complete each stage faster with a frequent delivery schedule and planning resources efficiently to ensure that the project does not surpass the deadline.

Conclusion

As the agile methodology is being widely used by most companies, its stance on risk management remains questionable in some companies/organisations. But in today’s time the agile methodology has come up with solutions for the risks in an app development project. These challenges are being found and integrated into agile methodologies and project practices.
If you need more information on how to handle development risks in an agile environment, you can contact the App-Scoop app developers. App-Scoop app development team can help you by managing risks that your app might encounter during the development process and help you curb them with appropriate solutions.
Contact app-scoop app developers- https://www.app-scoop.com/contact-us.html
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