SEKE 2012 Proceedings - Knowledge Systems Institute

contribution of each study was made based on our feelings
during the development of the mapping studies, in which the
primary studies were analyzed in a systematic way.
When it comes to the SPL scenario, it is important to
highlight that the primary studies were not specific to RM, i.e.,
they did not present specific approaches or methods to conduct
RM during the projects. However, they were included since
they reported SPL studies discussing RM, at least superficially.
IV. LIMITATIONS AND THREATS
Some limitations and threats were identified during the
development of this research, as f ollows. In order to reduce
these problems, three researchers had been actively involved in
this work.
The studies analyzed in the mapping studies lack sufficient
information regarding ways that RM could be applied, mainly
to SPL projects. Hence, to identify the results and re port
relevant findings the researcher involved in the analysis had to
infer on the available results if these results were not explicitly
presented as way to manage the risks.
A potential bias involves the fact that one researcher was
responsible for synthetizing the evidences in this study, while
different researchers were involved with the validation of the
analysis.
The same researchers were involved in the both mapping
studies execution, consequently, bias from others studies can
be presented in this evidence analysis.
The RM-SPL presented studies until 2010 and the RM-SSD
until 2011. This can be a threat since some studies could be
considered in SSD due to the time in that the research was
performed.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Despite the need to apply Risk M anagement (RM)
activities during the development of SPL projects, these
practices have not been adequately reported in the literature.
Hence, explicit RM in SPL can still be considered as an open
question, which may be confirmed by analyzing industrial
practices, unlike SSD, which contains a large set of evidence.
In this effect, regarding SPL, RM still has a long way to
develop research, since no empirical evidence is available
about its effective use in companies that develop software
based on product line paradigm. It was verified through the
execution of two mapping studies in SPL and SSD t o RM,
where few studies reported experiences applying RM for SPL
projects compared with SSD [5].
Based on this analysis, we identified a set of activities to
apply RM in the SPL context. In addition, it was possible to
understand the practices adopted by the primary studies for
performing RM in software development. In the SPL context,
we identified 32 risks, 15 different activities and practices that
can be used to reduce them, and 26 steps to optimize the RM
activities and practices execution. In the SSD review, we found
56 risks, 22 RM activities and practices and 85 steps.
The narrative synthesis added meaning and value to the
results reported in our mapping studies, providing more
detailed implications for further research about RM in SPL.
The comparison described, through the narrative description,
allowed us to investigate the scenario of RM and to collect
specific insights to propose a clear RM approach to SPL.
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