Risk assessment is an essential process of every software risk management plan. Several risk assessment techniques are based on the subjective judgement of domain experts. Subjective risk assessment techniques are human intensive and error-prone. Risk assessment should be based on product attributes that we can quantitatively measure using product metrics. This paper presents a methodology for reliability risk assessment at the early stages of the development life cycle, namely, the architecture level. A heuristic risk assessment methodology that is based on dynamic metrics is described. The methodology uses dynamic complexity and dynamic coupling metrics to define complexity factors for the architecture elements. Severity analysis is performed using Failure Mode and Effect Analysis as applied to architecture models. Severity and complexity factors are combined to develop heuristic risk factors for the architecture components and connectors. A case study of a pacemaker architecture is used to illustrate the application of the methodology.

• risk analysis