The IT field is progressing rapidly in our country. This fact has numerous reasons and government's policies are playing major part as well.
We have numerous software development houses working independently on different projects, mostly developing small-scale projects for different companies, and for other software houses, who out-source from these software houses.
Very few of them are those who are working on huge projects like building their own ERPs, Expert Systems, etc. But the point of major concern is the reputation of the IT market as whole, which heavily depends on the success rate of the projects being developed, and unfortunately, most of the systems with larger budgets have more failure rate.
If we go for in-depth study of the reasons behind projects failure, we will find numerous writings addressing different critical issues like lack of proper planning, not using structured system development methodologies and not following software development life cycles stages carefully.
Not auditing data models, which surely leads to a failed project, since the data model is the core of any system, a project without proper data modelling will lead to nowhere other than a failed project. Working on projects with no prior experiences, is of course too expensive and risky with failure chances of more than 70pc-90pc. Lack of quality assurance and testing phases in any project is a sure failure, projects are never built bug free then how a project without proper testing and quality assurance can be successful? And there can be listed many more.
As we are progressing in the field quite late than the others and have many other competitors in the market with good reputations, we cannot tolerate to loose our reputation by having failed projects' badges on our shoulders! There is a great need of following proper strategies. We have to focus most on the projects' success rate to capture the market and let the investors trust the local IT talent, and the companies to let their projects be developed locally, so that the foreign investors and other IT giants can also trust the region for outsourcing.
The major points that play vital roles in success of a project include proper leadership. It is amusing to know that an organisation can invest hundreds of millions of rupees and even thousand millions to a project and then fail to lead that project to success.
The major reason of this failure is the lack of good leadership. Professor Warren Blank in his book 'The 9 Natural Laws of Leadership', provides a powerful metaphor about leadership:
"Leadership and physics share a common focus. Physics explains the energy, matter, and motion that define how the universe works. In the same way, leadership is the power that galvanises human energy and translates it into action. So the exercise of leadership can be viewed as the practice of human physics."
Just like a building needs an architect, software projects need technical leaders. Software projects are no different than building a tall multi-storey compound. The way we develop our software, if our buildings will be built the same way, with the very first of the bird sitting at the top of the building, will be the end of the whole project. As engineering a building requires lots of care and detailed plans, building models, making blueprints, plumbers, carpenters and contractors, all have to be managed properly and prior to the instant when they are actually needed. In the software development, we have to go through the same drill. These are not the technical secrets that cause most of the projects to fail, but lack of good engineering principles. The team lead has to take his workers to follow these principles, planning every bit of the project phase, from management to risk management, from database designing to product marketing, every single thing has to be addressed and planned properly. This is not the lack of technical skills that causes projects to fail, but the lack of following methodologies, principles.
And in the mean time, parallel to the responsibilities of team leader, and following the principles, support from the top management is as crucial as these are. Without full commitment from the top management and support to the project leaders, when problem arises in the projects, the project is a sure failure. Most of the IT projects, especially system development projects, always encounter serious setbacks. Management has to be prepared to visibly and vocally available behind the project, else the project is surely to be collapsed.
There can be hundreds of such factors listed on which success or failure of a project depends, but by clarifying the reasons behind a project failure and taking preventive measures is the most important factor of successful development of a project. And most of such factors in real are the branches of the key factors.
Be it risk management, project planning, designing, clarity of the tasks, implementation, time scheduling, funding, deployment and maintenance, and a long list... but they all fall in these three categories, they all can be addresses under this tripod which holds the fate of the project. If the legs of this tripod are balanced, at their proper places, it can hold the project securely.
If we want to come forward as IT giants in the world, for which we have enough capabilities, talent and potential, we must have to organise ourselves in proper manner, we will have to make our roots strongest, having a crew of sharp developers is not everything.
A project that has been failed with 40 workers could have been successful with only half of them if proper principles and prototypes are followed. This is where our future in IT market resides. Without proper planning we can not build successful projects, without successful projects we can not gain good market reputation and compete with others and thus cannot gain a good place in market and any attraction for companies for our developers and development houses.
AUTHOR: Department of Computer Science University of Karachi