Why Software Projects Continue To Fail

Over the years l have been personally involved in several software projects. Some of these were big, some were small, some succeeded, some completed but failed and some never completed at all. In today's world resources are abundant about how to and how not to run a Software Project.

The question is why do Software Projects continue to fail even in the availability of past as well as present experience?

1. Not defining purpose of the project

Any Software Project must be started having goals it needs to achieve and is intended to live for a certain purpose. Many times we have been involved in those meetings, you can picture a Business Analyst scribbling away on a whiteboard why we need this piece of software.

Individuals write down notes and discussion points. However if there is no conscious step to list and document the purpose of this software it is bound to fail. The purpose of a software must be documented not matter how small and developers as well as team members must refer to it through out the life of the project.

2. Doing one stone kill two birds meetings

Meetings are an important ingredient of any successful project. The type of meeting to have when, is very important. l have been involved in meetings where people discuss everything from marketing strategy, project success probability and many project factors. While the items may be important discussion points these kind of meetings are bound to lead to the failure of a project. Project meetings must discuss one thing at a time and are not supposed to move to the next item unless the current one is at least in review stage.

3. Ignoring or not defining project team/s scope

Modern software projects have various teams from Developers, Designers, User Experience specialists. Many are times l have witnessed for example a Designer telling the Developer how to do their work or the other way round. Role encroaching is bound to lead to massive conflict and definite project failure.

4. Over solving problems

Every software is developed a specific problem .The software must be considered done once the problem is solved and nothing more must be done in the current project otherwise a new project must be opened. Trying to solve additional problems in a running project will lead to definite project failure.

5. Trying to be different before you exist (Trying to look cool)

Sometimes l have witnessed projects that solve the problem they are designed for. However they go a step further to try and deliver the solution in a never seen before way. While being different is good it must be done on time. Trying to have a different solution before you have a solution will lead to guaranteed project failure and must be avoided or at least minimized.

6. Trusting the the wrong person

So your friend who is a telecommunications expert tells you doing a website is easy, come l will show you. They then download an open source software and setup it up with a great theme and make you happy. Knowledge and skills of a non field professional has limitations. Trusting such a person with the delivery of a complex project will lead to self inflicted project failure

7. Erratic trust or Trust shifting

The last of my experiences is the shifting of trust. Sometimes you start a project with one team. Maybe later on you hire this cool programmer and decided he takes over lead of this project. This process must be handled with kid gloves as it has in many times led to project failures. The first problem is usually team demoralization while the second the new lead armed with your trust will redo and change the direction of many things and none of the old team members will not speak because they have lost your trust as the Product Owner.

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