| ::Requirements | Requirements are only partly known at project start. Customers may not allocate sufficient resources to exploring requirements. | Medium | Critical to Catastrophic | Requirements will be detailed first for the top priority goals. Indicator: Track the rate at which requirements are discovered. Contingency: request more customer effort. | Amber | Requirements Lead |
| ::Goals | Stakeholders goals may conflict. | Medium | Critical | Keep an explicit list of stakeholders goals. The project manager will report progress to each declared goal. | Green | Customers |
| ::Communication | Communication problems in development team. They are dispersed among several sites, and have not worked together before. | Medium | Critical | Use these [tools](SDM#communication) to help communication. The main indicator of miscommunication will be software defects detected by our [QA activity](qa-plan). | Green | QA lead |
| ::Acceptance | Customer may accept delivery of the system although it does not really meet their goals. | Medium | Critical | Customers are asked to declare acceptance criteria as each release is planned. | Green | Customers |
| ::Scope | The total features requested may be beyond what the development team can deliver in the time available. | High | Marginal | Assign levels of important to the use cases. Make the first review of project scope after 12 months. | Green | Customers |
| ::Estimate | The development team might not be able to estimate the work time, preventing customers from deciding priorities effectively. | Medium | Marginal | The development team will gain experience in estimating the work, and deliver the first estimates after 12 months. We will compare estimated work to actual work. | Green | Project Manager |
| ::Retention | Some developers may leave the project before it is finished. | Medium | Marginal | Employing locations should provide support for continuing professional development. The project manager will discuss career goals with each developer, and try to assign tasks appropriately. | Green | Project Manager |
| ::Correctness | The system as delivered may have low take-up because of a lack of confidence in its correctness. | Low | Catastrophic | State of the art [QA activity](QA-Plan). Contingency: stop development of new facilities until the quality of the existing code is assured. | Green | QA Lead |
| ::Usability | The system as delivered may have low take-up because of poor usability. | Low | Critical | We will have a UI style guide. Most of the development of the front end will be in close contact with customers. We will review usability later in the project. | Green | UI design lead |
| ::Desire | The stated requirements might not match the customers' desires and ambitions for the system. | Low | Critical | Incremental delivery of versions will provide experience of using the system, which will help the customers to identify the real requirements. Indicator: a developer saying "I think they mean ...", a customer saying "They know what I mean". Contingency: request customer review of requirements. | Green | Customers |
| ::Changes | After requirements have been documented and agreed, development activities begin to based on them, first design then implementation. If the requirements change later then effort is wasted. | Low | Critical | A change control procedure is required, so changes are only made when the cost is worthwhile. Indicator: compare cost of change to new development. Contingency: request customer review of requirements. | Green | Project Manager |
| ::Process | Some developers may not cooperate in common standards and processes. | Low | Critical | QA to check conformance, then discussions in development team meetings to change the standard or the actual practice as appropriate. | Green | QA Lead |
| ::Maintainability | The system as delivered might be hard to maintain. | Low | Marginal | We will review the code for maintainability. | Green | Lead Developer |
| ::RISK-NAME | ONE-TO-THREE-SENTENCES | Low or Medium or High | Negligible or Marginal or Critical or Catastrophic | ONE-TO-THREE-SENTENCES | Red or Amber or Green | PERSON-NAME |
