Individuals Interviewed for This Study

¶ … individuals interviewed for this study is provided in Table __ below: Position Manner of interview Ahmed Alsaleh Business Manager face-to-face Amr Jad Researcher in Risk Management face-to-face Fahad Altfery Senior IS Department Phone Ibrahim Alquhtani Project Team Leader Phone Haitham Almayyan Senior and work over engineer Skype Hussein Zedan Technical Director of STRL face-to-face Khalid Alali Solutions Architect Phone Mansour Alammari Project Risk Specialist Skype Nasser Almalki Business Analyst Phone Sultan Hamad Senior it project Manager Phone According to Neuman (2003), although face-to-face interviews enjoy several distinct advantages over telephonic or other computer-mediated interview methodologies including the ability to observe nonverbal communication cues and so forth, the interview process itself is also characterized by several constraints that must be taken into account to help achieve successful outcomes.

Telephonic interviews, though, enjoy the advantage of being able to reach virtually anyone with a phone, making approximately 95% of the world's population potential interviewees (Neuman, 2003). Despite the constraints that are associated with the interview approach, interviews with individuals remains one of the best ways of collecting the type of primary data that is needed for many research projects today (O'Day & Killeen, 2002).

To ensure congruence between the interview results and the type of information being sought, it is important for researchers to ensure that their structured interview questions are tied to their guiding research questions (Neuman, 2003), a step that was followed in the development of the interview questions used in this study. There are some ethical issues that must be considered in conducting interviews, though, including the need to obtain informed consent from all interviewees prior to commencing the interviews.

For instance, Daly (1999) reports that, "The interview is the creation of an unnatural social situation, introduced by a researcher, for the purpose of polite interrogation. It is this situation, delicate by definition, which is ethically questionable" (p. 98). Therefore, steps must be taken by the researcher to address these ethical issues by advising participants of the type of research and what their involvement will involve using informed consent prior to the conduct of any interview.

In this regard, Skarbek, Henry and Parish (2006) emphasize that, "This means that every person is an autonomous decision maker and should receive information so that he or she can make a voluntary choice to participate in any research study. An informed consent assists in ensuring that research follows this principle" (p. 27).

Therefore, since informed consent and permission to use their names was obtained from all interviewees preparatory to the conduct of the interviews and analysis of the resulting data and the personal data collected will be destroyed upon completion of the research process, the interview approach was deemed the best suited for the purposes of this study since it provided the ability to collect empirical observations and insights concerning risk management practices in software development project from real-world practitioners.

The verbatim transcripts of the structured interviews with the above individuals are provided in Table __ through __ below, with recurring key words, themes and metaphors, as well as any quantitative data that emerged from the analysis being reported in the adjacent column. Table Responses to interview questions and recurring key words, themes and metaphors Question Responses/Coding Summary Q1: Have you worked with any software project? And if so, which stage did you work with it? A.A: Yes, I have developed system for renting cars in Saudi Arabia.

(1) A.J: Yes, I have worked in software project, I worked in planning stage for user interface (2). F.A: Yes, if you work with any software especially developing websites you will face many problems, but you should be patient to solve them (1). I.A: Definitely, my career has always centered on developing various applications and programs to our clients. As a Project Team Leader, I am always involved from start to finish with the software projects I am assigned to lead (3).

H.A: Yes I have, I worked with drilling operational risk assignment, and it was generic software program (1). H.Z: Yes, I have from beginning to the end (2). K.A: Majority of my work involves ensuring that designs and plans are properly executed during all phases of software projects; thus, I am always involved in all stages of the SDLC (3). M.A: I have always been involved with software projects from beginning all the way to the end-of-life of the applications my company developed.

However, my part in all aspects of software projects is concentrated on the risk side (3). N.A: Being involved in software projects is my "bread and butter," and I always am at the forefront throughout all stages of the project since I have to always ensure that documented business process are properly developed into the correct applications (3). S.H: Yes, I have worked with various software projects for over a decade now.

I have worked on all stages of software projects as a developer, analyst and now I mostly handle the management side thereof (3). Coding of responses: 1 = Yes, basic experience: 3. 2 = Yes, moderate experience: 2. 3 = Yes, advanced/extensive experience: 5 Recurrent key words, themes and metaphors: 1. Problems with software projects are inevitable. 2. Software projects are worked on start to finish by many engineers. 3. Risk assessment is required at every step of the process. 4. Problems can be expected during every phase of the software development process. Q2: Have you faced any problems or risks during this.