Reducing Risk of Software Development

1. Use a team that has played together. A development team which has worked on prior projects understands the strengths and weaknesses of each team member, as well as the roles that they need to play to deliver a product.
2. Don't skimp on requirements. In a rush to complete a project or product, requirements analysis is often the first casualty.  Don't let this happen to you.  Even Rapid Application Development needs written requirements.  You can skip some of the design documentation if you prefer to go straight to prototype, but a lack of requirements documentation is a sure recipe for disaster.
3. Schedule time for testing.  If requirements are the first to go, allowing adequate time for testing is the second best practice which is frequently skipped.  This means that you will need to reach code complete roughly two thirds of the way through the entire project. 
4. Protect developers with leadership and management.  Avoid tying up all your development team in frequent, long meetings, and isolate developers from distractions and contention through the work of the project manager and technical lead.
5. Choose your architecture at the beginning.  Significant architectural changes are expensive and time consuming, and this effect gets worse the longer you wait.
6. Be ready to remove features.  As the ship date approaches, features must be removed or the date pushed further out. 
7. Perform periodic builds.  For most projects a daily build is overkill, but scheduled builds create a sense of urgency and the opportunity to review how the pieces are coming together.
8. Give developers the right tools and training.  Don't skimp on the hardware, software and training of your development team, or you will pay far more in the long run to make the product ship.
9. Keep team roles distinct.  Don't let developers perform final testing on their own code, nor allow one person to wear incompatible hats such as tech lead and project manager.
10. Leverage off-the-shelf products and technologies. Don't succumb to the temptation to develop everything from scratch.  You would not mill the lumber for your house addition from a log, so don't write software to fill the low level functions provided by rich application servers or client front ends.