Software engineering projects may fail before they are started: Post-mortem analysis of five cancelled projects

被引:40
作者
Ahonen, Jarmo J. [1 ]
Savolainen, Paula [1 ,2 ]
机构
[1] Univ Eastern Finland, Sch Comp, Kuopio 70211, Finland
[2] Univ Limerick, Lero Irish Software Engn Res Ctr, Limerick, Ireland
基金
爱尔兰科学基金会;
关键词
Software engineering; Project cancellation; Project failure; Post-mortem analysis; Customer; Supplier; SUCCESS;
D O I
10.1016/j.jss.2010.06.023
中图分类号
TP31 [计算机软件];
学科分类号
081205 [计算机软件];
摘要
Context: Software project cancellations are often caused by mistakes made during the project, and such cancellations make a strong economic impact. We analyzed five cancelled software engineering projects. One case was an internal product development project of a company that sells products to its customers. The other four cases were different software engineering projects, and outcomes of these projects were planned to be delivered to external customers. Objective: This study reports a post-mortem analysis of five software engineering projects with the aim of providing more knowledge about the reasons for cancellation decisions and the causes behind those reasons. Methods: The research method is case study. A method for a document-based post-mortem analysis was developed and post-mortem analysis was performed. All project documentation was available for analysis. Results: The reasons for the cancellation decisions were well-known ones. In four cases of five, the outcome of the project was to be delivered to an external customer, but in these cases the causes of the cancellation reasons were not found from the normal project documentation. In these cases the cause of the cancellation originated in a phase before the start of the project and therefore the project was doomed before it was started. Conclusion: It is reasonable to suggest that a remarkable portion of project cancellations are due to mistakes made before the project is started in the case of contract-based software engineering projects. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:2175 / 2187
页数:13
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