"I don’t get it," the project manager complained. We were debriefing after a project launch debacle, and tensions were running high. "We had our best people on the project. We authorized overtime. We even had outside consultants review our systems before we put the system into production. And now this!"
My boss was referring to the high-profile new system we had spent months building—only to have our customers utterly reject it. We had worked hard, planned extensively, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop what was supposed to be a revolutionary system to save millions of dollars for the company.
Yet we had failed.
Even worse, there were no assurances we would fare any better on the next project.
Does this scenario sound familiar? Multiple studies indicate the failure rate for custom software projects is above 60%. This astonishing statistic is tolerated only because software systems are integrally vital to modern organizations. Given this poor track record it is no wonder businesses balk at increasing IT budgets.
Large web site projects suffer from these same ailments. Why do these failures occur? Software projects fail not from lack of effort, but from effort misguided. A nimble, easy-to-use methodology makes projects consistently successful.
Agile software development is the solution.