Practice: Risk-Value Lifecycle |
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The risk-value lifecycle practice supplements the iterative development and two-level planning practices with the unified process lifecycle. This lifecycle identifies four phases, each of which attempts to balance value provided against risk mitigation appropriate to the phase. |
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Purpose
Why adopt this practice?
Project stakeholders look for ways to understand and control project
funding, scope, risk exposure, value provided, and other aspects of the project.
While project iterations deliver product increments that show value
delivered and show progress at a fine-grained level (meaning that work items
are being addressed), they do not provide the necessary project oversight, transparency,
and steering mechanisms at a coarse-grained level that allow stakeholders to
make informed business decisions about the project.
The organization of iterations into a set of phases -- with a well-defined
milestone at the end of each phase -- provides the structure that stakeholders
and managers need to assess whether the objectives of the phase have been met
and whether the project should move on to the next phase or not. See Phase Milestones for more details.
By addressing the goals and risks of each phase, the team has the opportunity
to find the right balance between risk reduction and immediate value creation,
which are two major drivers for stakeholders. See Project Lifecycle for more information. |
How to read this practice
The best way to read this practice is to first familiarize yourself with its overall structure: what it is in it and
how it is organized.
Start with understanding what phases are and how they relate to iterations. Understand what phase milestones mean
and the questions that they help answer. See Phase Milestones for more information. You can also read the definition for
each phase for more detailed information: Inception Phase, Elaboration Phase, Construction Phase, and Transition Phase.
Then, understand the importance of a structured lifecycle in driving two
main stakeholders' concerns: risk reduction and value creation. See Project Lifecycle for more information.
For instructions on how to adopt this practice, see How to Adopt the Risk-Value Lifecycle Practice.
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Additional Information
Additional resources
For more information on the risk-value lifecycle approach, see the following:
- Kroll, P. and Kruchten, P. The Rational Unified Process Made Easy,
Addison Wesley, 2003. Chapters 5 through 9.
For more information on this practice, see the practice resource page on
IBM® DeveloperWorks®. |
Relationships
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