Identifying validated risk factors in software risk management is imperative for project managers. Although validated risk lists were provided by previous researchers, risk list associated with software project performance areas was not provided as yet. This paper represents a first step toward understanding risk lists by various project performance areas (time, cost, and quality) to help project managers alleviating the possibility of software project failure. Four simultaneous exploratory surveys were conducted with 29 experienced software project managers. Three different risk factor ranking sets for each project performance area were compared with, the risk ranking, which was provided without clarifying specific project performance areas. The risk lists and their corresponding perceived importance were different from previous research results. This implies that identifying risk factors for specific project performance areas can provide additional information for project managers. We concluded by discussing implications of our finds for both research and improving risk management practice.