Software Projects Secrets: Why Software Projects Fail

Description

Software Project Secrets: Why Software Projects Fail offers a new path to success in the software industry. This book reaches out to managers, developers, and customers who use industry-standard methodologies, but whose projects still struggle to succeed.

Author George Stepanek analyzes the project management methodology itself, a critical factor that has thus far been overlooked. He explains why it creates problems for software development projects and begins by describing 12 ways in which software projects are different from other kinds of projects. He also analyzes the project management body of knowledge to discover 10 hidden assumptions that are invalid in the context of software projects.

 Table of Contents
* Introduction
* Why Software Is Different
* Project Management Assumptions
* Case Study: The Billing System Project
* The New Agile Methodologies
* Budgeting Agile Projects
* Case Study: The Billing System Revisited
* Afterword

CONTENTS:

SOFTWARE PROJECT
SECRETS
WHY SOFTWARE PROJECTS FAIL
George Stepanek
Software Project Secrets: Why Software Projects Fail
Copyright © 2005 by George Stepanek
Lead Editor: Dominic Shakeshaft
Technical Reviewer: David Putnam
Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Dan Appleman, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Tony Davis,
Jason Gilmore, Jonathan Hassell, Chris Mills, Dominic Shakeshaft, Jim Sumser
Associate Publisher: Grace Wong
Project Manager: Sofia Marchant
Copy Edit Manager: Nicole LeClerc
Copy Editor: Liz Welch
Assistant Production Director: Kari Brooks-Copony
Production Editor: Ellie Fountain
Compositor: Dina Quan
Proofreader: Patrick Vincent
Indexer: Carol Burbo
Artist: Kinetic Publishing Services, LLC
Interior and Cover Designer: Kurt Krames
Manufacturing Manager: Tom Debolski
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stepanek, George.
Software project secrets : why software projects fail / George
Stepanek.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-59059-550-5
1. Computer software--Development. 2. Project management. I. Title.
QA76.76.D47S733 2005
005.1--dc22
2005019810
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Contents
ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
ABOUT THE TECHNICAL REVIEWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
PART I
WHY SOFTWARE PROJECTS FAIL . . .
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER 2 WHY SOFTWARE IS DIFFERENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Software Is Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2. Software Is Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3. Requirements Are Incomplete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.Technology Changes Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Best Practices Are Not Mature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.Technology Is a Vast Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.Technology Experience Is Incomplete . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8. Software Development Is Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9. Repetitive Work Is Automated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
10. Construction Is Actually Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
11. Change Is Considered Easy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
12. Change Is Inevitable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
viii
CHAPTER 3 PROJECT MANAGEMENT ASSUMPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . 23
Hidden Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The PMBOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Scope Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
When Should Scope Definition Occur? . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Time Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Activity Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Activity Sequencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Activity Duration Estimating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Schedule Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Cost Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Resource Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Software Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Developer Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Cost Estimating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Quality Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Checklists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Risk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Risk Acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Risk Transference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Risk Avoidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Risk Mitigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
ix
CHAPTER 4 CASE STUDY:THE BILLING SYSTEM PROJECT . . . . . . . . 51
Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Death March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
PART I I
. . . AND HOW TO MAKE THEM SUCCEED
CHAPTER 5 THE NEW AGILE METHODOLOGIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Selected Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Other Agile Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Crystal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
1. Frequent Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2. Reflective Improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3. Close or Osmotic Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4. Personal Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5. Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6. Easy Access to Expert Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7.Technical Environment with Automated Tests,
Configuration Management, and Frequent Integration . . . 73
Using Crystal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Extreme Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
1.The Planning Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
2.Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3. Pair Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4. Refactoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5. Simple Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6. Collective Code Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
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7. Continuous Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8. On-Site Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
9. Small Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10. 40-Hour Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
11. Coding Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
12. System Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Using XP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
The Rational Unified Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Iterations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Artifacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Activities and Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Process Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Use Case - Driven Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Visual Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Using RUP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Mitigating Risks with Agility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
1. Incomplete Requirements and Scope Changes . . . . . . 91
2.Tools and Technologies Don't Work As Expected . . . . . 92
3. Developers Lack Skills and Expertise . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.The New Software Has Defects and
Requires Rework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5. Project Staff Turnover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
CHAPTER 6 BUDGETING AGILE PROJECTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Budgeting for Software Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
1. Continuous Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
2. On-Demand Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
3. SWAT Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4. Subteam Encapsulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5. Feature Trade-off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
6.Triage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7. Scoping Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Contents xi
Combining These Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Major Legacy System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Minor Legacy Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Major New System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Minor New Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Agile Offshore Outsourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
CHAPTER 7 CASE STUDY:THE BILLING SYSTEM REVISITED . . . . . . 115
Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Inception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Scoping Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Project Planning Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Elaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Review Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Construction Iteration 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
CHAPTER 8 AFTERWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
APPENDIX:THE AGILE MANIFESTO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Manifesto for Agile Software Development . . . . . . . . . . 133
GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
xii Contents