Software project continue to have an increasing failure rate according to a Standish report. Standish regularly reports on the success of software projects. This year shows a decrease in success.
While more and more emphasis is placed on project management for the failure, I believe that the real reason is a lack of business value definition. In too many cases, projects get initiated with a good and valid business reason, but the "solution" is seen to be the installation of software. Software is a tool which can help a business improve, but it is not a solution by itself.
More effort needs to be placed at the front end to determine the real goal. The real goal might be to increase sales, reduce costs, improve cash flow, improve quality of service. By using a software product the business may be able to capture and analyze data more quickly and easily, deliver goods more quickly, etc., but the software will not do that. It can help, but if your business process is ignored, you may end up creating more problems, more quickly. That doesn't help reach the business goal.
Start by clearly identifying the business goal, then show how the goal will be achieved. When you see what steps are required, you can identify where software can help. After you have decided how the software can help, don't turn the project over to IT for implementation. Keep focused on the goal, which should deliver business results, earlier rather than later.
If there is something in the project that doesn't produce business results, you will learn that earlier and be able to adjust the deliverables of the project to ensure success.
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2 comments:
Just goggled in there and saw your web site there , according to me the main reason behind the failure of different softwares is the increase in the rate of software in the market day by day.
There is an increase in the rate of software available, and this may cause more confusion in the minds of people buying the software and making decisions.
The failure in software projects is less related to the software itself, than to the approach and management of the project. If the project focuses on software implementation vs delivering business results, the project will fail to achieve the business result.
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