This March, VIU rolled out a new, fully redesigned university website. Discuss the likely risks and risk management issues involved in such an undertaking.

SAMPLE SOLUTION There are a huge range of serious risks and issues to be discussed here, for full marks you had to have sufficient discussion of both risks and issues, and they had to deal specifically with the VIU website (not just vague risk management in general). Some of the risks include Revenue risks (decreasing VIU revenue) ------------- e.g. flaws in the system that cause students to not register in courses or programs when they would have otherwise, or cause them to not make purchases they would have otherwise, or problems that result in lower recruitment of new students e.g. because the new system is too hard to use for prospective students, recruiters, guidance counsellors, parents, etc, or because following old links on various sites leads to "page not found" errors, or simply because the new site creates a poorer overall impression about VIU leading to students choosing to go elsewhere Expense risks (increasing VIU costs) ------------- e.g. the increased workload on IT staff to develop, deploy, and maintain the new systems e.g. the increased workload on other VIU staff to carry out their jobs using the new systems e.g. the increased hw/sw costs to run the new systems e.g. the increased training costs for staff, students, and others interested in using the site Technical/data risks -------------------- e.g. lost access to data or other documents that were accessible under the original website e.g. privacy or security breaches caused either by errors on the new site or by misuse/misunderstanding of the new site and processes e.g. compatibility issues with various browsers and devices Organizational risks -------------------- e.g. increased frustration for staff, students, prospective students, recruiters, or the community over having to learn the new system e.g. disappointment in the new system (doesn't live up to the expectations of staff, students, prospective students, recruiters, or community) e.g. anger over the commitment of funds to this project given the tight VIU budget problems (anger from staff, students, community, government ...) Some of the risk management issues include - risk categorization and prioritization: of the risks listed above, which ones do we see as most likely, most costly to deal with, most critical to deal with - contingency planning: for each of the risks above, what can we plan on doing to handle the situation - risk mitigation: for each of the risks above, what can we do in advance to minimize the impact should they occur Some specific/critical decisions might include - do we run the old/new sites in parallel for "awhile", if so, how long, how do we get people to try the new system to ensure we're ready to make the transition - do we have rollback/recovery plans if the new site (or part of it) fails? - what time of year should rollout take place (summer? during semester?) - who should be involved in the design, evaluation, and testing phases?