Causes of Software Development Project Failure

Requirement

This assignment is writing a report about why do software projects fail? . The report is consist of introduction , body which include ( 1. Software Project Description ,2. Failure Cause(s) ) , conclusion and bibliography.For the case studies of failed software project , it should be new ones not old. the writer can use one study case if it is has more the 2 causes otherwise he should provide more than one) and for the citation i would prefer article or publication thats available online not books if possible.

Solution

Introduction

In this report, we have used two case studies on causes of project failure, one of them written by Verner and Abdullah (2012)and the other was by Nils Brede Moe and Aybüke Aurum (2012).The former study will help in identifying the software project failure case of BskyB Project, and the latter study has considered the case of South Company. Software development is considered as a process of documenting, computer programming, bug fixing, and testing involved in maintaining and creating frameworks and applications resulting in a software project. Therefore, it can be said that software project development is a combination of different activities like conducting research, new development, modification, prototyping, re-engineering, reuse, maintenance or any other activities that produce software projects. Software projects are developed for satisfying different objectives, but the main objective behind the development of software projects are to fulfill specific demands of a particular client, to fulfill a perceived demand of potential users, and for personal use. Nowadays, software development project failures have become very common in the environment. Most of the software projects fail due to the schedule and cost over-runs. In last 50 years of its establishment, there can be seen numeroussoftware project successes as well as failures stories. This report provides a brief study about the causes of software development project failure using two cases. This report also suggests that software developers must maintain a high-level job satisfaction which ultimately enables the success of the project. In the absence of job satisfaction, cost and scheduled goals of the project can be impacted which will eventually lead to project failure.

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Software Project Failure Cause

The section discusses the causes of the project failure that were identified in the two cases considered for the study. Software project management appears to support the study by describing the success of software project as meeting budget, business objectives, and delivery (Kendrick, 2015). As per the case situation, it can be stated that mentioned below are the areas that are the failure factors:

People

  • Skills

  • Social Interaction

  • Level of Motivation Methods

  • Top Management

  • External Agents

  • Development Work

  • Cooperation

  • Project Team

  • Users

Tasks

  • Customers

  • Sales

  • Contracting

  • Requirements

  • Project Management

  • Software testing

  • Quality Control

  • Development work    

  • Environment

  • Policies

  • Technology

  • Project Complexity

  • Policies

  • Available assets

  • Organization Structures 

  • Business Domain

The people related causes involve skills, social interaction, and motivation (Trendowicz et al, 2014). The socialized interaction within the projectinfluence the outcome of software projects significantly. They said that if a software project development team involves too many people, then the risks for software project overrun increases.They also said that stakeholder breakdowns and conflicts in communication are the main important causes of software development project failure. The inconsistent methodutilized in developing software consists of work practices used by the project members is a common cause of project failures (Linberg, 1999). It is necessary for the team members to understand work practices conducted by different individuals for improving the outcome of the project.Due to the presence of all these factors software project of the identified two cases failed. They should formulate effective action plan which covers especially the actions of top management, users, project team and external agents. Apart from this, the other causes of failure of software project development are following:

  1. Lack of Effective leaders: It is necessary for the project to have effective leaders who can easily motivate and inspire their subordinates. One of the serious mistakes in software development is motivation. In the absence of the effective leaders motivational factor is absent among employees. It has a significant impact on quality and productivity of the software project and may lead to failure of software development project.Every organization should have software professionals who have the potential of higher growth needs for managingsuch problem.

  2. Conducive Organizational Climate: Most of the Researchers conducted enough research to analyze the influence of the organizational climate on job satisfaction, software developer, and their job performance. Job satisfaction is required for a successful project, and if it is not present, then it is certain that project does not derive expected result which may cause failure of the project.

  3. Unrealistic Technological Requirements: Due to the unrealistic technological requirements software developers feels discouraged and fail to commit to the goals efficiently. This influence the outcome of the project. The risk of the unrealistic requirement is considered similar to the risk of unrealistic perfectionism. The risk of unrealistic technological requirements leading to inevitable failure of a software project.

  4. Unrealistic Effort and Schedule Estimates: When the software developers find that the effort or schedule estimates are unrealistic, they may not struggle for quality solutions or may not commit fully to the objectives of the project. Unrealistic effort and schedule estimates enhancing the workload pressure, due to which they are not able to perform their tasks with high efforts and efficient manner (Trendowicz, 2014). Workload pressure also leads undetermined creativity which brings dissatisfaction among them.

  5. Insufficient software personnel and other required resources: When there is a perception that the project is not able to get required software personnel than it causes dissatisfaction among available project personnel's and they seem demotivated. Due to this, they are not able to produce desired outcomes and project may prove a failure.

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Conclusion

After going through these cases, it can be said that there is no single root cause for software project failures. It is necessary that a new paradigm and concept should be developed by the software developer to bring project success. The identified cases should have included a more extensive framework for the success of software project. Implementation of new theory and paradigm requires high support from the people (Purna Sudhakar, 2012). The main step towards the implementation of the new paradigm is that the organizational leaders have to become aware of their own perceptions of the success and failure of a software project. These leaders ensure that their perception is realistic which do not harm any project activity. Software developers should spend a lot of time to understand the different causes of software project failures. This will give them hints about the possible risk which can be avoided to make the project successful. 

References

  • Moe, Nils Brede, Aybüke Aurum, and Tore Dybå. "Challenges of shared decision-making: A multiple case study of agile software development."Information and Software Technology 54.8 (2012): 853-865.

  • Verner, J. M., & Abdullah, L. M. (2012). Exploratory case study research: Outsourced project failure. Information and Software Technology, 54(8), 866-886.

  • Lehtinen, Timo OA, et al. "Perceived causes of software project failures–An analysis of their relationships." Information and Software Technology 56.6 (2014): 623-643.

  • Linberg, Kurt R. "Software developer perceptions about software project failure: a case study." Journal of Systems and Software 49.2 (1999): 177-192.

  • Trendowicz, Adam, and Ross Jeffery. "Challenges of Predictable Software Development." Software Project Effort Estimation. Springer International Publishing, 2014. 3-10.

  • Kendrick, Tom. Identifying and managing project risk: essential tools for failure-proofing your project. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, 2015.

  • Purna Sudhakar, Goparaju. "A model of critical success factors for software projects." Journal of Enterprise Information Management 25.6 (2012): 537-558.


 

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