Examining Risks With Outsourcing Decisions: A Case | Rahul Thakurta & Umesh H. Rao

Studies on software development project risks have mostly focused on identifying and prioritizing risks in order to suggest mitigating measures. The paper presents a framework in order to carry out assessment of risks pertaining to three different decision alternatives related to software project development viz. in-house, partly-outsources, and fully-outsourced development. Based on a quantitative framework validated using a case study, the risk profile corresponding to the three alternatives could be arrived upon providing a visible representation of the extent of risk associated with the decision alternatives. The framework is expected to better guide managers in choosing between alternative scenarios by explicitly considering risks associated with each of the alternatives.