RisCal -- A Risk Estimation Tool for Software Engineering Purposes

Decision making in software engineering requires the consideration of risk information. The reliability of risk information is strongly influenced by the underlying risk estimation process which consists of the steps risk identification, risk analysis and risk prioritization. In this paper we present a novel risk estimation tool for software engineering pruposes called RisCal. RisCal is based on a generic risk model and supports the integration of manually and automatically determined metrics into the risk estimation. This makes the tool applicable for arbitrary software engineering activities like risk-based testing or release planning. We show how RisCal supports risk identification, analysis and prioritizations, provide an estimation example, and discuss its application to risk-based testing and release planning.