Stop Software Project Killers

Highlights from InformationWeek Larry Tieman's Article "Stop Software Project Killers".

"Most major software projects miss their timelines, don't deliver all their promised functionality, and run over their cost estimates--but not seriously. What scares me are the ones that go very wrong, blowing out their budgets by 400% or more while delivering little or no value. And we've all experienced them.

They can be a job killer, so it's critical for IT leaders to structure them so that they can detect and correct problems--or pull the plug--early on. A common refrain amid runaway software projects is that the senior-most IT officer, juggling too many projects at once, didn't know things were going very wrong until it was too late.

If only the technical risks were anticipated so well on every enterprise software project. A recent Harvard business review article on for data that supports this idea that IT leaders must be on guard for these IT projects at risk of massive failure. The article studied 1471 IT projects, many of them in the public sector, and found on average, the project ran 27% over their costs. More importantly, though, about one and six was the kind of disaster discussed here – with the 200% cost overrun on average and 70% time over run."

For more information, read the full article here.