More Software Project Failure / Challenge Information From CAI

March 31, 2010 · Filed Under Software Estimating  - 1 Comment(s)

Bob Lawhorn of CAI, one of my favorite speakers, had a list of recent software project failure information. 

  • Poorly defined applications (miscommunication between business and IT) contribute to a 66% project failure rate, costing U.S. businesses at least $30 billion every year (Forrester Research)
  • 60% – 80% of project failures can be attributed directly to poor requirements gathering, analysis, and management (Meta Group)
  • 50% are rolled back out of production (Gartner)
  • 40% of problems are found by end users (Gartner)
  • 25% – 40% of all spending on projects is wasted as a result of re-work (Carnegie Mellon)
  • Up to 80% of budgets are consumed fixing self-inflicted problems (Dynamic Markets Limited 2007 Study)

Bob also listed reasons why projects fail including:

Requirements Issues: Unrealistic project goals, uncontrolled scope creep with no allowance for such in the plan.

Estimating Issues:Inappropriate schedule, no process to re-estimate when the project changes, no reasonableness chekcks.

Quality issues: Trying to test in quality rather than a process that implements quality throughout

Poor Team Productivity: High rework (doing the same thing multiple times due to issues with the initial work)

Project Management Issues: (Lack of planning, earned value, impact of changes and issues… No estimates so  no earned value)

Cultural Issues: Hiding the bad news

Bob also touched on how their automated project office product can help with many of these issues and can integrate with Galorath’s SEER-SEM for estimation.


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Comments

One Response to “More Software Project Failure / Challenge Information From CAI”

  1. Davis on August 27th, 2011 3:13 am

    Hi! Regarding “60% – 80% of project failures can be attributed directly to poor requirements gathering, analysis, and management (Meta Group)”, where are the references to Meta Group?

    Everyone just quoted Meta Group but there’s no particular article or statistics being mentioned?

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