Yesterday during the Software Engineering class, the professor mentioned the Boehm’s spiral model which is a risk-driven software process framework, which was proposed by Boehm in the year 1988. This model assumes that changes are a result of project risks and includes explicit risk management activities to reduce these risks. Even though it was mentioned in a Computer Science class, it made me think about the potential implementations that this method can have in our self-improvement journey.
I have already mentioned samurai warriors as a good example of people who vividly tried to think about the risks that they could face regularly on a daily basis because of the type of the work that they did. The same type of application is appearing in a completely different area that is software engineering, which one can surely accept that it has not anything to do with samurai warriors. This occurrence can be as a notifying sign that when things are viewed from a perspective of reducing the worst case scenarios, we are more likely to get better results. Moreover, even if the worst cases occur, we are not totally unprepared and surprised, but we are facing something that was already among our prior thoughts.
Additionally, risk-driven framework is partly similar with the type of a theory about success, which has not been getting a lot of attention, called effectuation. This theory was devised by Saras Sarasvathy, who is a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. It underlines a new approach of not having a final goal, but instead thinking about different usages of current means and tools and letting goals emerge contingently over time. It intersects with the risk-driven approach in the aspect that it lets a person having the purpose of using current means and minimizing the likelihood of the occurrence of unpleasant events.
In conclusion, next time you are having difficulties in making a decision, instead of being afraid of thinking negatively and seeing it as a doomed method of planning and taking action, remind yourself that it is not that bad. It actually has been finding different implementations, and make fear your friend and let it guide you during tough decisions.
