Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects

5. The Case Against Risk Management

“Risk management often gives you more reality than you want.”

—Mike Evans, Senior Vice President ASC Corporation¹

¹ Mike Evans is a fellow governor of the Airlie Council, a group that was set up by the U.S. Department of Defense to help the armed services improve software and systems acquisition.

We must confess that there are a few reasons not to do risk management. We wouldn’t be writing this book if we felt that such reasons were sufficient to make the whole notion unattractive. Nonetheless, you need to know about the negatives as well as the positives.

Most of the negatives have to do with the way that risk management interferes with certain management styles. Many of these styles are generally counterproductive ...