How to prevent from failures of Software Projects

A software project is the entire process of developing software, from gathering requirements to testing and maintenance, carried out in accordance with execution techniques over a predetermined amount of time to produce the desired software output. Nowadays, software projects are a crucial component of practically any organization. They present particular difficulties and might not always be simple to put into practice. Latest researches have identified that over 70% of software projects fail including software projects of leading companies. How to prevent from these software project failures? We can avoid the reasons that lead to the failures of software projects. Let’s have a look about these reasons and solutions to prevent from failures of software projects.

Table of Contents

01. Impossible Timeframes

Software projects frequently fail because project managers accept arbitrary deadlines. After carefully analyzing the resources available to each team, it is the responsibility of the project manager to conduct open discussions with executives. A deadline that is impossible to reach, after all, is the antithesis of motivation.

Solution : Project Manager needs to discuss with their team and the client and make a decision about the deadlines of the projects. By discussing with your team project manager will be able to determine possible timeframes for a particular project. Also project managers can use tools like Jira, Azure DevOps to easily track the performance of the project, manage timeframes and etc.

02. Not understanding the requirements of the client

Software development team have a huge knowledge about in software engineering field. But they don’t have a huge knowledge about other fields. As an example software engineer does not have a knowledge about the health industry. Very frequently, the clients themselves are unsure about what they want to see, which prevents the project from moving further. The secret to making sure the project doesn’t fail is to communicate with your clients and ask them for their precise vision of the future of the product.

Solution : As requirements gathering team of a software project, the team have a major responsibility to identify all the requirements of the client. Sometimes client may doesn’t have an idea about the specific requirements. So requirements gathering team can use different methods such as interviews, questionnaires, surveys etc. to gather all requirements.

03. Mismatch between Developer Skill Set and Requirements Of the project

In an effort to complete projects quickly, team leads may give developers projects that are currently above their scope of expertise. The developer may be reluctant to share their difficulties, which could result in false starts and development delays.

Solution : Before assigning members to the project team leaders, team members and other executive staff must have a clear idea about the project and assign members who are experts in that fields. As an example there are lots of computer languages and tools. But every developer should not aware about these computer languages and tools.

04. Expecting excessive software customization

We frequently think that software can be tailored to the point where it will meet all needs. That is a false impression. Realistic expectations are crucial.

Solution : Establish the specifications for the software’s capabilities. Adjustments are necessary when making change requests as you go, but you must wear that hat to prevent frustration.

05. Not giving priority to essential tasks

When left to our own devices, humans can have bad priorities both in daily life and when developing software. The mind seeks out issues that need to be resolved and goes deep in its hunt for a solution, but occasionally we need to step back and decide which issues are most important to handle.

Solution : Use effective project management techniques and consistent communication to highlight the areas on which each team and team member are concentrating.

06. Not keeping up a sustainable speed

Given that software projects involve a coordinated effort to keep many teams operating well, speed is a crucial component of on-time delivery. Your chances of success decrease and your software project fails if a consistent pace is not maintained across all teams.

Solution : Keep a strong communication between software developing team will help to resolve this failure. Also executive officers like project managers, team leaders can monitor the progress from the help of tools like Jira.

07. Cost of delay (COD)

Cost of Delay (COD) quantifies the financial damage that would result from the company’s inability to complete a project on schedule. Making this calculation and sharing it with your software teams will help them remember it and promote on-time delivery.

Solution : Communicate with the team who are enrolled with the project and calculate the cost of delay.

08. Budgetary constraints

Numerous projects are predicated not on the project requirements but rather on the lowest price, the supplier policy with the best track record, or an excessively low budget. When this occurs, everything becomes more gradual. Resources are either delayed to come or never do; as a result, quality falls and costs are slashed.

Solution : Be reasonable with your spending and base it on all necessary expenses. Create exact budget that not exceed or lower. As an example if you are presenting the budget for a project as $1 mil. last spending should be not as $2 mil. or $0.5 mil. So please remember to make exact budget for a project.

09. Lack of Quality Assurance

Frequently, quality assurance suffers as a result of our haste to provide the product. The design has problems, there is insufficient documentation for code modifications, and implementations may not be full. All of these result in wasted time, revisions, and finally dissatisfied clients.

Solution : Make a quality assurance team and take enough time to check the quality of software. When you are deciding timeframes create a specific time period for quality assurance.

10. Failure to Meet Industry Standards

By assuring appropriate accessibility, portability, usability, robustness, and lowering existing and future issues, adhering to industry standards in your software projects can prove advantageous. Open standards that are difficult to challenge have been produced by organizations like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Solution : Review and introduce international standards to your projects. This will make client more happier on your projects.

Summary - How to prevent from failures of Software Projects

Clearly defined timetables and project deadlines must be established by an organization. The success of software development projects is aided by clarity regarding costing, vendor information requirements, design, and methods. Create a team with the appropriate technical and work skills, and describe the success criteria in detail so that everyone on the team has clear objectives. The failure rates will be reduced by user input, iterations based on recurrent testing, and monitoring internal milestones.