Is your software project in trouble?
More than half of software projects run into serious problems. Some are abandoned—and a high percentage of the rest are judged failures. The results of these failures are costly. Outside investors lose their money; internal backers lose their careers, or see them suffer.
Projects in trouble show one or more of these common signs—no documentation, poor communication, missed deadlines, recurring bugs, developer’s inabilty to address basic questions (e.g. scalability, security), multiple change requests.
Possible root causes include incomplete project analysis, definition or scoping; architectural design flaws; poor coding; inadequate testing, etc.
A “reality check” can save real software projects—and those invested in them. Read the MyScreen Mobile story for an example.
A reality check should follow these steps:
- Meet to understand the situation at a high level, including needs and scope
- Over about one week, assess the project architecture, code and staff
- Provide a report of the findings and recommended options
Each reality check should be based on software best practices. They should involve interviews with the core team and other stakeholders. They’re already under pressure, so care must be taken to work around their schedules.
Importantly, if the client doubts a defect or show-stopper that is found, a test should be built to demonstrate the flaw.