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CMGT/545: Influence And Leadership In Tech Date

Project Risk Assessment Template

As Intuit, Inc. prepares to transition to cloud-based applications, the development team has foreseen potential issues and challenges that could negatively impact the project. Complete Parts 1 and 2 below to identify and assess at least 12 risks to the project.

Part 1: Risk Assessment Table

Use the table below to list 12 risks to the project, identify the risk level and likelihood of each, and provide mitigation strategies that would reduce the impact and likelihood of each event. There should be at least 5 high-level risks.

Note: Examples have been provided in the first 3 rows of the table. You may not use the provided examples.

Risk Level

· Low (L): minimal impact to finance and time to completion

· Medium (M): medium impact to finance and time to completion

· High (H): high impact that may jeopardize the success of the project

Likelihood of Event

· Certainty: 90–100% chance of happening

· Likely: 70–89% chance of happening

· Somewhat likely: 40–69% chance of happening

· Unlikely: 0–39% chance of happening

Risk	Risk Level L/M/H	Likelihood of Event	Mitigation Strategy
No clear migration strategy in place	M: Detailed execution steps	Certainty	Develop the strategy and timeline upfront to avoid confusion

			when it comes to executing on the migration.
Data Loss	H: Configuration of backups	Likely	Reduce the amount of manual intervention needed to perform migration and automate as much of possible
Training	L : Application training	Likely	Ensure there is a training program in place for all end users and users of the web application
Latency	H: Application speed	Somewhat likely	Check with the ISP and validate SLA(service-level agreements)
Data Access	M : Data Access	Certainty	Verify with provider that the IT team can still access the data after migration, and remote uses will be limited to accessing data
Infrastructure	H: Identify what already exists	Likely	Work with the IT teams to document the existing systems and their dependencies
Service Provider validation	M: Verify providers claims	Certainty	Verify the provider is able to support the companies requirements, verify the references
Internet Access	M: Bandwidth	Certainty	Ensure the cloud service provider can

			manage the expect high volume of mobile devices connecting to the application
Incompatibility with existing architecture	M: Application API review	Certainty	Perform an audit of the existing architecture and document any and all gaps in a detailed document
Security	H: DDoS attacks	Likely	Check with the vendor to see what cloud and physical security packages they offer.
Human interference/Error	M: Knowledgeable of user area only	Somewhat Likely	Ensure that employees are properly trained and choose participants to work on the project who have a vested interest.
Regulatory/Complia nce	H: Compliance with governing bodies	Likely	Implement controls that validate regulatory compliance
Migrating Everything at Once	M: Deviating from the plan	Somewhat Likely	Develop a schedule that details when phases of the migration can proceed and identify any predecessors

Part 2: Risk Assessment Report

Provide a comprehensive description of each high-level risk, including a justification of your analysis and mitigation strategy.

The risks that I identified as being high risks to the project are as follows:

1. Data Loss

2. Latency

3. Infrastructure

4. Regulatory/Compliance

5. Security

Data Loss

This risk of data loss can be high with a project like this due to many unforeseen circumstances; power outage, data corruption, improper backups, human error. With a proper plan in place, this can greatly hinder the project’s completion.

In order to mitigate this risk, it is recommended that we establish a documented backup plan and ensure that we have configured an automated backup process and data validation process.

Latency

Due to the migration to a cloud-based platform, it is important that we ensure that our internet service provider(s) are able to support the increased bandwidth that will be used on our platform. If users encounter delays in sending or receiving data, it can lead to the potential loss of customers to our competitors.

In order to mitigate this risk, it is recommended that we ensure that our local network is accessible and optimized to withstand the flow of traffic. We will also have to ensure that the cloud application is able to be accessed from multiple locations at once.

Infrastructure

Due to this being a new application and process, it is important that we review the existing architecture to see if it can support the proposed changes. Depending on how our existing architecture is configured, we may need to build microservices that will support the different application protocols and changes.

In order to mitigate this risk, we will perform a comprehensive audit of the architecture during the planning phase. This will be a review that accesses our strengths and weaknesses in our existing architecture and document all the necessary changes or additions that we will need to implement to ensure compatibility.

Regulatory/Compliance

Moving to a cloud-based platform means that there are added regulatory and compliance protocols that we will have to adhere to. Cloud-based computing and industry standard regulations may be introduced

that we have not had to previously adhere to.

In order to mitigate this risk, we will review the new compliance and regulatory guidelines during the infrastructure review process. We will document each new or existing regulation and ensure that we are developing around these items so that we are in compliance once the platform is deployed.

Security

Moving data to the cloud involves a lot of security risks: compliance violations, insecure APIs, misconfigured servers, malware, external attacks, accidental errors, insider threats, etc. In addition to the technical challenges, there is also the physical risk to our server location. We will also need to ensure that each team member is performing their due diligence to ensure that they have adhered to the necessary guidelines when completing their tasks.

In order to mitigate this risk, we will review the security packages offered by the vendor to determine if that is an added cost that we can absorb. In addition to the cloud-based security package, we will develop a disaster recovery plan that considers a physical recovery process in the event of an unforeseen event. We will also ensure that all project members have documented process steps to ensure that they are not creating any unnecessary risks when completing their project steps.