Reasons for project failure

During the past 15 years, i have worked on various projects. I must say that some projects are not as successful as expected.

Here are most common reasons for project fail:

Project Initiation & Planning Issues

• Unclear or unconvincing business case

• Insufficient or non-existent approval process

• Poor definition of project scope and objectives

• Insufficient time or money given to project

• Lack of business ownership and accountability

• Insufficient and/or over-optimistic planning

• Poor estimating

• Long or unrealistic timescales; forcing project end dates despite best estimates

Lack of thoroughness and diligence in the project startup phases

Technical & Requirements Issues

• Lack of user involvement (resulting in expectation issues)

Product owner unclear or consistently not available
Scope creep; lack of adequate change control
Poor or no requirements definition; incomplete or changing requirements
Wrong or inappropriate technology choices
Unfamiliar or changing technologies; lack of required technical skills
Integration problems during implementation
Poor or insufficient testing before go-live
Lack of QA for key deliverables
Long and unpredictable bug fixing phase at end of project

Stakeholder Management & Team Issues

* Insufficient attention to stakeholders and their needs; failure to manage expectations
* Lack of senior management/executive support; project sponsors not 100% committed to the objectives; lack understanding of the project and not actively involved
* Inadequate visibility of project status
* Denial adopted in preference to hard truths
* People not dedicated to project; trying to balance too many different priorities
* Project team members lack experience and do not have the required skills
* Team lacks authority or decision making ability
* Poor collaboration, communication and teamwork

Project Management Issues

* No project management best practices
* Weak ongoing management; inadequately trained or inexperienced project managers
* Inadequate tracking and reporting; not reviewing progress regularly or diligently enough
* Ineffective time and cost management
* Lack of leadership and/or communication skills

Agile Process can cure some of the problems, but not all

Open Source "Best Practices"

Check out the Best Practices for Open Source project from collab.net.

Most of the "Best Practices" are also followed by in-house agile development team.
Such as:

1. Technical Communication


2. Version Control, Document Management, and Distribution


3. Build and Test Management


4. Project Management


5. Knowledge Management

I can't agree more that open source products have achieved a remarkable degree of quality with very low cost because of the following reason.

1. Developers are self-selected by their interest and knowledge of the application domain.


2. Requirements are tacitly understood by developers who are themselves users of the software.


3. Technical communications (including bug reports) are conducted in public. The public nature of open source helps developers take pride in their successes and think twice before releasing faulty code.