The change in requirements while construction of a software may bring into several risks like over budget and extra schedule. The changes in requirements are considered as a high risk to fail the software projects. A good project manager always incorporates risk management paradigm to manage the risks of changing requirements. This research uses available statistical techniques to estimate the cost of risk management with respect to the changing requirement. In addition, a hybrid cost estimation model is proposed using action strategy model to counteract, mitigate and manage the risks of changing requirements. The proposed model is validated using an industrial case study in Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) to conclude the results. The results are found supportive because the proposed model shows significant improvement to estimate the costs of changing requirements as compared to the existing cost estimation models.

Change, in software requirements during its development phases, is considered as a major risk which may affect a software project to fail. Therefore, software engineering processes, methods, and tools are used in order to manage these risks whereas changes in requirements have many negative influences such as effects on system development life cycle (SDLC) phases, project progress, and outcome of a software project. Consequently, project managers must use risk management strategies, activities, and estimation techniques in order to manage and mitigate these risks which are caused due to changes in requirements. A novel model is proposed in this paper to manage and mitigate risks related to changing requirements. The proposed model is validated through qualitative research design. The results are in favor of the proposed model to show its effectiveness. It is anticipated that the proposed model will solve the problems of software companies in major to deal with risks about changing requirements.