Why do software projects fail and the traps you could avoid that could bring disaster

Many startups and businesses are being doomed right from the start. Have you experienced that in your business while developing your application software? That seems to be the case in many of the projects and they don't seem to work as they should.

In fact, companies are learning to expect a dismal outcome: In a study, Geneca found that 75 percent of business and IT executives surveyed admitted that their projects were either "always" or "usually “doomed" right from the start.”

Software is an integral part of the business in this changing world and if that is right, the last thing you would want is the failure of the software or a buggy software that could just bring down your business and well cost you a ton load of money.

Now how to avoid the forthcoming disaster and get self-trained before development begins and things start to get worse:

Poor research and unclear requirements

The very integral reason a project is doomed right from the start is the lack of research and competency to understand the project detail and technicality involved. The focus should be on why to build and what is the end goal precisely in spite of just building the product as soon as possible. There is a lack of research on the project before the development starts. If the project is well understood with motive as easy as you know ABC, building the product would be much smoother and easy.

Product Planning

Planning plays the most crucial role in any project. Failing products do planning as well but many companies simply don’t realize how long a project will take or how much it will cost, and that often leads to unrealistic expectations. Upcoming risks and patterns are not even recognized and planned for which leads to building a buggy platform and causes time and cost stretch. The plan is often developed by a limited no of iterations and personal bias which leads to conflicts and uncompleted milestones. Planning should be given the maximum priority and should be reviewed often to get the maximum results.

Trends and Strategy

Often found the final development plan or the product launch strategy do no consist's of market trends as well as performance analysis with a competitor which results in an underdeveloped product. Companies focus on completing the project rather than giving the best of what would be beneficial for the product as well as achieving the strategic objective. There is much more to a final product than just building the product it should consist of current as well as upcoming trends to get the maximum reach and retain users.

Too many people involved

To complete the project often project managers add up more resources to the project without a proper KT (Knowledge transfer) and often leads to uncertain communications and results in failure at multiple levels. Every person has his way of work in spite of following a specified way and lack of communication leads to a near-to-fail project. It could be working at that time but believe me whenever a change needs to be implemented it results in so complicated version of code as it was passed through many hands without proper handling of errors.

Failure to find a good project manager

A lack of time and planning, an absence of resources, and an insufficient budget are all common reasons for failures with software. But the lack of a competent project manager is a particularly key, and recurring, problem.

Communication is a must for completing a project on time, so, without a project manager, a project will likely become disjointed and ambiguous. If no one on your team has the skills required to push through a development project, you may want to look into hiring outside consultants who can deliver the results you’re looking for.

Testing and Security

Due to lack of planning in development, there is always pressure to deliver the project on time which leads to insufficient test plans and test cases, which leads to failure in the production environment and security breaches.

Memory testing, security testing, Penetration testing are now the most required in any product every product is now in an era of security breaches, frauds due to which platform users. could lose trust forever.

Final Thoughts

With so many projects failing, you won't do yourself any good rushing into development. So, be sure to determine your project scope and assign competent leadership to achieve the desired results. An outside consultant is also suggested, a product is as good as it is built and planned.

Rohan Girdhani

IT Consultant | Researcher Your Personal Sherlock Holmes

Happy learning!!