Appendix A: Glossary of Risk Terminology

Assumption analysis: A three stage process facilitating rapid assessment of impact and stability of assumptions affecting a project.

Brainstorming: An intense and focused scrutiny of an issue with the aim of covering it as intensively as possible. Uses creative and lateral thinking to identify as many possibilities as possible and structured analysis to select suitable options.
Business continuity planning: Contingency plans which deal with the potential impact of risks so severe that they threaten the continuity of the business.

Cause-and-effect analysis: A method of representing the causes and consequences of a risk so that the likelihood and impact may be more accurately calculated. A combination of a fault tree and event tree.
Chance: The potential for the occurrence of an event or the outcome of an uncertainty.
Checklist: A list of closed (yes/no) questions to allow consideration of risks based on previous experience.
Confidence levels: A range of outcomes within which one is confident that a result will occur to a given level of probability.
Contingency: Provision of a margin (for example, within the funds available for the project, the time available for project delivery, or in overspecification of product characteristics) so that project achievement may be optimized against the project objectives in the face of risk impact allowing for the cost and opportunity cost of the margin.
Corporate governance: The consolidation of a number of reports that define good practice for companies (specifically those listed on...

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Risk Management in Software Development Projects