Large and complex projects such as construction of highway bridges or construction of aircraft are usually delivered on time and within budget. However, software projects are often not. IEEE Spectrum September 2005 Issue has three feature articles on this issue. One of them is:
Why Software Fails — The reason that software project go away are well know. Yet failures, near-failures, and just plain old bad software will continue to plague us. By: Robert N. Charette
Why do software projects fail so often?
- Unrealistic or unarticulated project goals
- Inaccurate estimates of needed resources
- Badly defined system requirements
- Poor reporting of the project’s status
- Unmanaged risks
- Poor communication among customers, developers, and users
- Use of immature technology
- Inability to handle the project’s complexity
- Sloppy development practices
- Poor project management
- Stakeholder politics
- Commercial pressures
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2005 at 10:25 AM and filed in Software Engineering. Bookmark this entry. Follow the comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are closed, but you can leave a trackback.
I think that poor quality of IT profession is a determined factors in the failure of software projects. Most often, IT profession do not possess sufficient software development knowledge. They may be an expert in technical skill such as system installation. In order to improve the quality of IT profession in the area of software projects, Software projects manager should be well-trained and continue their up-dated knowledge by participating the CPD(continue professional development).
Posted on 01-Oct-05 at 12:36 am | Permalink