by Joel Aufrecht 05:43 AM, 08 Feb 2004
In the United States, we spend more than $250 billion each year on IT application development of approximately 175,000 projects. The average cost of a development project for a large company is $2,322,000; for a medium company, it is $1,331,000; and for a small company, it is $434,000. A great many of these projects will fail. Software development projects are in chaos, and we can no longer imitate the three monkeys -- hear no failures, see no failures, speak no failures.

The Standish Group research shows a staggering 31.1% of projects will be canceled before they ever get completed.

Here's Standish Group's table on the build vs buy decision. Build seems to be the winner.
Developed from scratch using traditional languages and methods33%
Purchased application & modified 15
Developed from scratch using an object model 13
Developed some components & purchased others 13
Purchased application & modified extensively 12
Purchased components & assembled the application9
Purchased application & performed no modifications5
But it was only the fifth most important factor in project success rates.
Each factor has been weighted according to its
influence on a project's success. The more points, the lower the project risk.

Executive Support 18
User Involvement 16
Experienced Project Manager 14
Clear Business Objectives 12
Minimized Scope 10
Standard Software Infrastructure 8
Firm Basic Requirements 6
Formal Methodology 6
Reliable Estimates 5
Other 5
The active participation of the bosses, the users, and the manager are much more important than anything else to making a software project succeed. The reason, I'm guessing, is that with those parties involved, any other problem can be overcome, but the inverse is not true.
Categories: Quotation Comments (0)
XML

Archive

February 2004
S M T W T F S
2  7 
8  10  11  12  13  14 
15  16  17  18  19  20  21 
22  23  24  25  26  27  28 
29             
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
April 2001

Notifications

You may request notification for Joel's Blog.

Syndication Feed

XML

Recent Comments

  1. Victor Koledoye: A Religion ticket
  2. Joel Aufrecht: from a senior roboticist
  3. Jeff Davis: Source?
  4. Kathryn Schild: quick question
  5. Tai Yan Lim: Trip Back Home - Joel
  6. José Rodrigues: Hello
  7. Guan Yang:
  8. Erika Graffunder: Canada
  9. Erika Graffunder: Per capita emissions
  10. Erika Graffunder: Policy - should you keep evaluating or focus on solutions