7 Common Reasons Why Your Software Development Projects Fail

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7 Common Reasons Why Your Software Development Projects Fail

Software project management is the process of planning, organizing, and managing resources successfully for new product development. Skilled software engineers make use of the best available resources to deliver the best software product possible. According to studies, failure and rework rate of software projects is between 60% - 80%. Nearly 75% of companies say that they lack confidence when it comes to project management. (Source: Geneca)

So, what really is the reason for the failure of a software project? The fact is that most software projects fail because project managers cannot recognize the main principles that should be applied to software projects.

Knowing the project failure reasons, however, can help your organization and your team to avoid them. So to ensure that your next software project successfully comes to execution, look out for these 7 points to avoid failure of your project.

1. Failing to Identify Right Goals and Vision

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So what’s your project goal? Do you know the right plan that will get you there? Yes, plans will change throughout a project's development lifecycle. It's unavoidable. However, without having the right path for your project and checkpoints can’t keep you moving in the right direction. You could find yourself with unclear ideas along with a lot of unrealized goals.

Therefore, before you start with a new project, figure out what are your goals, what is the outcome should be. Even if you have a plan that’s less structured, it will provide your team with a measurable goal to work forward. Break the project down into stages with their own set of deliverables.

Knowing your goals will help you maintain an accurate timeline for the next phase, the next set of project management goals, and the project's ultimate outcome. If you're having issues with your current development project, we can help. Check out more about Syncrasy Tech and our services.

2. Inadequate Resources and Planning Structure

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In 2017, in a survey, it is found that 37 percent of IT professionals surveyed said they'd had a project failure due to lack of planning, time, resources, staff members, and budget. However, they have achieved success, but only marginally.

There are many things, of course, that can go wrong when it comes to a project management lifecycle. It includes planning, execution, and ensuring that you have the right resources in place to achieve project completion. Many organizations simply don’t know how long a project will take that often leads to unrealistic goals set.

The best thing to cut down on cost and required planning is to ensure the involvement of top management from the start of a project to the finish line. The project requirements generally change midway through a project journey, so top management should be actively involved in the planning and execution process.

3. Lack of Understanding About Your Project Requirements

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Project requirements should be clear and laid out in the early stages of planning. However, t’s also possible that project managers who are working on the project weren’t clear on the specifications of the project. It will lead to leaving the development team unsure of what features would be needed in the software product.

For example, if your development teams don’t understand how the software will need to scale, they for sure cannot cater to your company’s project demands. In this case, working with a team of professional developers with a proven track record and experience of scaling software can make a difference.

After all, you need to build your company’s software and need to make sure that it will stand up to the test of time.

4. Adding Too Many Team Members To The Project

To complete the project within the set timeline, project managers frequently add more staff to work on a project. But, this shouldn’t speed up the project to meet the set timelines. But just as having a few people on the project can create problems, in the same manner having too many people can result in failure, also.

First, it will make your project costly. And it can also result in low quality of your end product as you add more people it will create more misunderstandings and unclear communication. The problem can sometimes arise when companies try for code integration written by project members who joined the project at different stages.

Adding more people to the project probably won’t help or rectify that problem. Instead, the best way of dealing with this situation is to set the correct number of people who should work on the project.

5. Lack of Proper Testing Procedures

 

 

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The lack of proper testing procedures and insufficient testing resources usually lead to no testing of the project. But your software development project should be always tested for errors and bugs. When you need to deliver on a project at a certain time, testing is the first task that can’t be left.

Sometimes the software product doesn’t function properly or may have some issues in the anticipated features that can crash unexpectedly. This will make your customers unhappy or worse. Most companies prefer to test their software product in their own internal environment. Unfortunately, this can lead to a breach of security and data theft. Hence, all of your testing procedures should be done in a safe environment that’s separate from your production unit.

The testing of software products should be carried out throughout the stages of the development lifecycle. Each component should be tested properly with adequate time.

6. Not Having A Good Project Manager

 

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The lack of having a good project manager in place just the same as not having the resources and budget to build your software. But not having a competent project manager is a particularly main issue for most companies.

Communication is the most important part of completing a project on time. Without a project manager, project communication will be not clear and ambiguous. If your development teams don’t have the skills required to push through a development project, you may have to hire a competent project manager who can deliver the results you’re looking for.

It is practically important in every segment of the project, the little or less communication will do more harm to your project than anything else. However, communication is not only limited to the developers in the project. But, investors, clients, top management of the project have that direct impact and affect clients’ interests.

The project managers can help in making open and transparent communication with clients, team members, and top management that will help into a project by keeping everyone on the same page.

7. Not Meeting Up to Client’s Expectations

Not meeting up to the client’s expectations is also the main issue for most companies. Few things are promised to clients like the budget, timelines, and technical outcome by your project team and the group being unable to deliver can certainly create issues for the organization.

Instead, you have to be honest about when telling your team capabilities. If your client makes a specific request about a software project, try to give them what’s possible with you in a fixed time frame with the right budget. Don’t ever sell any terms if they are not achievable.

This is one of the most common issues in project development and management lifecycle. Hence avoid overpromising and underdeliver is what you can do to deliver even more.

Final Words

Producing a great software product should be the main objective of any software firm. Hence, implementing effective project management may make a big difference between delivering a great final product. The reality is that many projects do fail because of these reasons. While you have to do things in the right way that can resolve the issues. For a company to remain competitive in the market, hiring a software development firm that uses best project management practices will ultimately yield the best results.

Syncrasy Tech is a leading IT solution company for more than 6 years. The company became a leading software development and IT staffing firm in the USA, UK, and India. Offering more efficient and affordable custom software, agile programming, and web design solutions to growing businesses. Contact here for more details.

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