Why Did Your Project Fail?

We have been developing softWare since the 1960s but still have not learned enough to ensure that our software development projects are successful. Boehm2 suggested that realistic schedule and budgets together with a continuing steam of requirements changes are high risk factors. The Standish Group in 1994 noted that approximately 31% of corporate software development projects were cancelled before completion and 53% were challenged and cost 180% above their original estimate.13 Glass discussed 16 project disasters.5 He found that the failed projects he reviewed were mostly huge and that the failure factors were not just management factors but also included technical factors. Linberg in 1999 found that 20% of software projects failed, and that 46% experienced cost and schedule overruns or significantly reduced functionality.8 Later, Glass revisited failed projects and found that poor estimation was high on his list of failure factors.6 In 2007 the Standish Group reported that 35% of software projects started in 2006 were successful compared with only 16% in the corresponding 1994 report; however, the 2007 CHAOS report still identifies 46% (53% in 1994) of software projects as challenged (having cost or time overruns or not fully meeting user's requirements) and 19% (31% in 1994) as outright failures.12 The validity of the Standish Group findings has been questioned as not consistent with cost overrun results of other surveys.7 Jørgensen and Molokken-ostvold suggested that there are serious problems with the way the Standish Group conducted their research and that the findings were biased toward reports of failure because a random sample of top IT executives was asked to share failure stories when mailed confidential surveys. © 2009 ACM.