Bring discipline to software development
- Posted:
- 16:58 27 Oct 2004
- Topics:
- Software Development | Supply Chain Management
Poor management processes cause high project failure
rate
It was 18 months ago that Nicholas Carr created uproar in the IT
industry with the publication of an article in Harvard Business
Review entitled IT Doesn't Matter. Carr foresaw a progressive
commoditisation of IT that would ultimately do away with the need
for companies to develop their own applications.
In the long run, Carr may or may not be proved right, but in the
meantime, companies such as Dell and Wal-Mart have quietly
developed and deployed custom-made software that has destroyed the
competition.
Michael Dell has made no secret of the fact that the company's most
powerful competitive weapon is its proprietary supply chain
management software. Likewise, Wal-Mart owes its success to an
advanced inventory control system. In both cases, the code that
runs these systems is a closely guarded secret.
The fact is that IT does matter and always will do. Great companies
will work hard to add value to packaged software to build
competitive advantage, while others will buy off-the-shelf merely
to achieve parity.
But before software developers the world over breathe a collective
sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that their skills will always
be in demand, they should be mindful of one sobering fact. Analyst
reports have found that, on average, an astonishing 80% of software
projects fail. Failure in this context is defined as the project
not meeting the original expectations of the business.
IT is still extremely difficult to get right; IT departments
swallow billions of pounds of capital expenditure, yet remain
largely a financial and management black hole. A Standish Group
report, released this year, found that 30% of software projects are
cancelled, 44% are too expensive, 60% are not considered a success
and 90% are delivered late.
Although software is a competitive weapon for some firms, it is
more of a business enabler for the majority. So what is going wrong
here and what can business analysts, developers and testers do to
improve the situation?
In most cases, projects do not fail because of flaws in the IT
itself. The tools exist to help craft first-class software at
breakneck speed. The real problem with software development lies
with people failing to communicate and processes not being
integrated to match business objectives.
Failure is the result of a communication breakdown, firstly among
the different roles of those responsible for implementing
technology in the IT department, and secondly with the people that
define and set the project's parameters in the business.
Unfortunately, most chief information officers have no way to
quickly establish which IT projects add the most value to the
business. In addition, when developers are set to work on a
project, they often work on the tasks that are easiest to do first
and leave the difficult, and invariably the highest value pieces
until the end. This means that if a project's budget is cut, or the
deadline is brought forward, the business is left with an
application devoid of all the high-value features that it was
originally designed to deliver.
Software development needs to evolve from being a "black art" to
more of a managed business process. Despite the billions invested
in software, its development is not scrutinised as any other
business processes.
There is no reason why the disciplines that were applied to
manufacturing processes with enterprise resource planning cannot be
applied to software development. When this happens, the full value
that software can deliver to the business will be realised and the
IT department will surely win the respect it deserves.
Laurent Séraphin is director of software development at Borland
