A big risk to our project is cost minimisation. As we are planning to go down the route of web-hosting, with an in-built registration system, this could quickly become very costly, as it involves webhosting, and a registration service from a different company. Obviously we will need to be able to identify and use open source software or free webhosting where possible, as we have minimal funding. However, the free alternatives are less reliable, or might not do exactly what we need. This means that if we rely on them too heavily then our solution might not be as effective as we first anticipated. The way of getting around this problem would be using paid software and buying a site domain. This would be more expensive though, and seeing as we are self-funded, this may not be financially viable. So we will likely have to find the right balance between free and paid software for an optimised spend-to-quality ratio.
Another risk is the actual execution of the coding aspect of our solution. This will require us to be able to write code to a fairly high quality. This will be difficult as we have not been officially taught any of the coding languages we are planning to use, so all of it will be self-taught, so bugs could be hard to resolve and we will need to rely heavily on online guides and tutorials for integrating different types of code (For example HTML and SQL). For the resolution of this we believe that the best course of action is for there to be one Lead programmer, and for the rest of the team to have a basic knowledge of all coding languages used, so if the programmer gets stuck, or there is a bug, the rest of the team can assist will the correction. This will be especially helpful, as if the programmer has been writing code for a while, they may forget something, and then when the project is being tested, the testers can identify and report the exact problem.
As well as these aspects, the simple communication between the members of the group could become challenging. This is because there is not one platform we are all on simulatiously. This means that it could become difficult to get in contact with another member of the team. This could be rectified in a number of ways though. For example, the project manager could specify a certain time when we all must be on Skype, so we can discuss any problems, and make decisions on the next step in the project’s creation. Also, there could be one or two days a week where all of the team met up face-to-face, and work through problems. This would be the best way for the team to keep contact, as it is easiest and most effective when in person.
