Facts Chart: Why Do Software Projects Fail?
Last updated: February 20, 2024 Read in fullscreen view
Recommended for you
- 01 Aug 2024
The Standish Group report 83.9% of IT projects partially or completely fail 1621 - 02 Nov 2021 What is Terms of Reference (ToR)? 1422
- 03 Apr 2022 Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) 1129
- 18 Oct 2021 Key Elements to Ramping Up a Large Team 1079
- 01 Oct 2020 Fail fast, learn faster with Agile methodology 943
- 18 Oct 2020 How to use the "Knowns" and "Unknowns" technique to manage assumptions 942
- 13 Apr 2024 Lessons on Teamwork and Leadership from Chinese story book "Journey to the West" 882
- 20 Jul 2022 Software Myths and Realities 762
- 14 Oct 2021 Advantages and Disadvantages of Time and Material Contract (T&M) 761
- 19 Oct 2021 Is gold plating good or bad in project management? 725
- 02 May 2022 What Is RAID in Project Management? (With Pros and Cons) 701
- 14 Jun 2022 Example and Excel template of a RACI chart in Software Development 670
- 18 Dec 2023 The Cone of Uncertainty in Scrum & Requirement Definition 616
- 06 Mar 2021 4 things you need to do before getting an accurate quote for your software development 597
- 13 Jan 2020 Quiz: Test your understanding project cost management 557
- 08 Oct 2022 KPI - The New Leadership 550
- 19 Apr 2021 7 Most Common Time-Wasters For Software Development 519
- 11 Jan 2024 What are the Benefits and Limitations of Augmented Intelligence? 417
- 28 Dec 2021 8 types of pricing models in software development outsourcing 414
- 27 Jan 2020 Should a project manager push developers to work more hours due to mistakes of manager schedule setting? 407
- 23 Sep 2021 INFOGRAPHIC: Top 9 Software Outsourcing Mistakes 402
- 10 Dec 2023 Pain points of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) 402
- 10 Apr 2024 The Parking Lot Method: Unlocking a Simple Secret to Supercharge Your Productivity 374
- 07 Jul 2022 Managing Project Execution Terms 373
- 31 Oct 2021 Tips to Fail Fast With Outsourcing 369
- 16 Apr 2021 Insightful Business Technology Consulting at TIGO 368
- 07 Jul 2021 The 5 Levels of IT Help Desk Support 368
- 12 Aug 2022 What is End-to-end project management? 364
- 06 Feb 2021 Why fail fast and learn fast? 354
- 26 Sep 2024 Successful Project Management Techniques You Need to Look Out For 352
- 17 Oct 2021 Does Fast Tracking increase project cost? 338
- 03 Jan 2023 Organizing your agile teams? Think about M.A.T (Mastery, Autonomy, Purpose) 333
- 09 May 2022 Build one to throw away vs Second-system effect: What are differences? 296
- 01 May 2023 CTO Interview Questions 291
- 13 Dec 2020 Move fast, fail fast, fail-safe 288
- 06 Jun 2022 Change Management at the Project Level 286
- 17 Feb 2022 Prioritizing Software Requirements with Kano Analysis 275
- 03 Nov 2022 Top questions and answers you must know before ask for software outsourcing 259
- 01 Aug 2022 Is planning "set it and forget it" or "set it and check it"? 259
- 10 Apr 2021 RFP vs POC: Why the proof of concept is replacing the request for proposal 251
- 07 Aug 2022 Things to Consider When Choosing a Technology Partner 248
- 15 May 2022 20 Common Mistakes Made by New or Inexperienced Project Managers 243
- 22 May 2022 What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make? 242
- 08 Nov 2022 4 tips for meeting tough deadlines when outsourcing projects to software vendor 241
- 18 Aug 2022 What are the consequences of poor requirements with software development projects? 236
- 20 Nov 2022 Software Requirements Are A Communication Problem 233
- 06 Nov 2019 How to Access Software Project Size? 229
- 02 Nov 2022 Difference between Change Management and Project Management 213
- 10 Nov 2022 Poor Code Indicators and How to Improve Your Code? 203
- 02 Jun 2024 Reviving Ancient Wisdom: The Spiritual Side of Project Management 201
- 07 Oct 2022 Digital Transformation: Become a Technology Powerhouse 197
- 01 Mar 2023 Bug Prioritization - What are the 5 levels of priority? 193
- 26 Dec 2023 Improving Meeting Effectiveness Through the Six Thinking Hats 188
- 24 Nov 2023 The project management paradox: Achieving MORE by doing LESS 187
- 02 Dec 2021 3 Ways to Avoid Scope Creep in IT Consulting 187
- 09 Feb 2023 The Challenge of Fixed-Bid Software Projects 186
- 23 Jun 2024 Best Practices for Managing Project Escalations 180
- 10 May 2022 Levels of Teamwork 178
- 05 Jan 2024 Easy ASANA tips & tricks for you and your team 173
- 09 Mar 2022 Consultant Implementation Pricing 171
- 09 Jan 2022 How to Bridge the Gap Between Business and IT? 160
- 30 Oct 2022 How Much Does MVP Development Cost in 2023? 159
- 07 Dec 2023 12 project management myths to avoid 153
- 16 Feb 2021 Choose Outsourcing for Your Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) 147
- 01 Mar 2023 How do you deal with disputes and conflicts that may arise during a software consulting project? 145
- 30 Nov 2023 Project Managers, Focus on Outcomes — Not Deliverables 142
- 21 Jun 2024 Dead Horses and the Escalation of Commitment 121
- 01 Mar 2024 10 Project Management Myths 118
- 12 Mar 2024 How do you create FOMO in software prospects? 115
- 14 Mar 2024 Why should you opt for software localization from a professional agency? 112
- 05 Jun 2023 Fractional, Part-Time (virtual) or Interim CTO: Who Will Cover Your Business Needs? 105
- 10 Jul 2025 Building AI-Driven Knowledge Graphs from Unstructured Data 101
- 17 Mar 2025 IT Consultants in Digital Transformation 55
Why Do Software Project Fail?
Poor Requirement Definition
Common software development requirements problems include incomplete or inaccurate requirements, poorly managed requirements change and missed requirements. The inability to identify all the impacts and notify anyone impacted by a change leads to poor change management. A poorly executed change means wasted efforts, outdated information and design conflict. This drives up cost and creates project delay.
Poor Scope Definition
A scope statement that is not clear, too general, or not measurable is of little use to the stakeholders.
Avoiding the 5 mistakes below can help ensure you have a well-defined and clear project scope.
- Rushing the project planning process.
- Using vague language and terms in the project scope statement.
- Not including the types of deliverables that are “in scope” and “out of scope”.
- Not including procedures for how completed work will be verified and approved.
- Omitting guidelines for handling project change requests that alter the scope.
Scope Creep
It seems so innocent at first. A simple customer request to add an item here, a brilliant idea to expand a service there, and before you know it, your project scope has outgrown and your team is over-extended. Scope creep happens when either
- the parameters of the project were not well-defined from the outset or
- there’s pressure either internally from the team or externally from customers or bosses to take on tasks that were not part of the original project plan.
How to prevent it:
The problem with scope creep is that it often contributes to project failure. You haven’t budgeted the time or resources necessary to complete the extra tasks, so what might have been a smashing success ends up a frustrating failure.
Inadequate Risk Management
Unforeseen risks can significantly slow down a project because it takes time to understand them, analyse them and prepare management plans to monitor, act on and track them. Delays can also happen when risk management activities take longer than you expected and they push out other activities on the project schedule.M
Risk management failures can be caused by the use of improper risk metrics, which induces inaccurate measurements. A practical example is weather forecasting. The most common risk metrics in modern risk management is “Value at Risk” (VaR).
Communication Gaps
It should go without saying, but communication in project management is the key. The tools your team uses to communicate should be explained and implemented from the outset of your project.
Causes of Communication Gap:
- Lapse in Concentration
- Lack of Clarity
- Knowledge Gap
- Relevancy Gap / Wrong Assumptions
- Different Communication Styles
- Language Barriers
- Technology Issues
Lack of Qualified Resources
Lack of resources usually means lack of time, people and/or money.
Here are 7 simple ways to address the qualified resources shortage
- Train existing employees
- Adaptability - apply workforce skills in a different way
- Re-evaluate your recruiting practices
- Standardise your products and processes
- Partner with nearby educational facilities
- Use contingent workers
- Bring in the experts
Wrong Project Objectives
The objective is the target—the tangible end product that the project team must deliver. The objective must be clear, attainable, specific and measurable. If the objective is not clearly written the end product may not meet the needs of the customer.
Example of a project objective: Add five new ways for customers to find the feedback form in-product within the next two months.
Requirement Gold-Plating
What is Gold Plating? Gold plating happens when the project team adds extra features that were not part of the original scope, usually as “freebies” for the client. Possible causes include: Going above and beyond: the project team thinks it will make the client happy.
Project managers who add gold plating to a project often hope to make the client happier with the project overall, but it may not always be worth the time, cost and effort. The project team adds extra features that were not part of the original scope, usually as “freebies” for the client. Possible causes include: Going above and beyond: the project team thinks it will make the client happy.
Developer gold plating: New technologies come with the promise of new features, better quality products, easy-to-write syntax and better performance. Developers are fascinated by them and are sometimes anxious to try them out. The effort required to design, implement, test, document, and support features that are not required lengthens the schedule and those new characteristics are not really necessary for the product.
Technology Related Mistakes / Silver Bullet Syndrome
System development mistakes arising from overestimating savings from new tools or methods or the silver bullet syndrome.
Silver bullet syndrome: A problem occuring when developers believe a new and usually untried technology is all that is needed to cure the ills of any development project
Expecting A ‘Silver Bullet’: Too often, enthusiasm arises from the false belief that a proverbial “silver bullet” will solve a given problem. However, proper solutions are rarely so simple—they are a blend of methodology, strategy and team support, not the result of a single action, technology or idea. Tech leaders should encourage open communication and leverage participatory group decision-making to solve challenges.
Process Related Mistakes
System development mistakes arising from insufficient planning, overly optimistic schedules, or planning to catch up later.
- Overly optimistic schedules.
- Insufficient risk management (including assumptions).
- Tools switching in the middle of a project
- Wasted time during the fuzzy front end.
- Shortchanged upstream activities.
- Inadequate design (ie. prototyping).
- Skipping the testing part of the product.
- Eliminating necessary tasks
- Adding people to a late project.
- Friction between developers and customers.
- ...
Remote Team Burnout
Remote working used to be considered a choice for some, allowing employees the flexibility and autonomy to choose to work from home some days and in the office other days; that was pre-pandemic.
Working In A Silo
The biggest reason software projects fail is because teams embark on a journey to build something that is either not a business need or does not address the right problem. Both reasons are a result of misalignment between the business and tech. To avoid this, it’s crucial to identify the problem the business is trying to solve and then work collectively with the business and not in a silo.
Poor Acquisition Practices
Most large multi-tier applications are built and maintained by distributed teams, some or all of whom may be outsourced from other companies. Consequently, the acquiring organization often has little visibility into or control over the quality of the software they are receiving.
For various reasons, CMMI levels have not always guaranteed high quality software deliveries. To mitigate the risks of quality problems in externally supplied software, acquiring managers should implement quality targets in their contracts and a strong quality assurance gate for delivered software.
Inexperienced Project Manager
An inexperienced Project Manager simply doesn't have the background or context needed to manage them as they arise
Here are mistakes of inexperienced Project Manager
- Too Much Detail
- Pretending to Know More than You Actually Do
- Preparing an Ambitious Schedule
- Over Reliance on Repeatable Processes
- Gold-plating the Deliverables
- Ramping up team so fast (Tuckman Ladder)
Written by Pham Dinh Truong (Henry), Software Architect, TIGO Solutions.
CEO at TIGO Solutions
Henry Pham is the founder and CEO of TIGO SOLUTIONS. After 20 years of working in the IT industry, he founded it for the contribution back to the community. In addition to providing cost-effective outsourcing solutions to clients worldwide, TIGO SOLUTIONS recruit at the top of their market, providing cutting-edge software development services to partners located across the world through a unique, integrated resource model.
Explore more on these topics
Guest Blogging: The Definitive Guide
Top Trending Topics
Share This
Link copied!
Recently Updated News