Why do software development projects fail so often?
You’ve either seen them or belonged to a team that was on a failed software project. The project seemed to be properly sponsored and, in theory, should have been delivered on time and on budget to the customer. Somehow, the project took a life on its own and quickly went out of control. The Standish Group, a research organization in Massachusetts, has been conducting an on-going survey (1) since 1993 on software and information technology failures. It is called the “Chaos Study.” The study is trying to determine “the scope of software project failures, the major factors that cause software projects to fail, and the key factors that can reduce project failures.” The study involves 365 respondents and represented 8,380 applications. This is a big study. In 1995, the Standish Group estimated that US development houses will spend 81 billion for cancelled software projects. What the study has found is rather thought-provoking and interesting. They have found that only about 16% of the softw
