Software Development Failures

Kweku Ewusi-Mensah

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Failed or abandoned software development projects cost the U.S. economy alone billions of dollars a year. In Software Development Failures, Kweku Ewusi-Mensah offers an empirically grounded study that suggests why these failures happen and how they can be avoided. Case studies analyzed include the well-known Confirm travel industry reservation program, FoxMeyer's Delta, the IRS's Tax System Modernization, the Denver International Airport's Baggage Handling System, and CODIS.

It has been estimated that one-third of software development projects fail or are abandoned outright because of cost overruns, delays, and reduced functionality. Some consider this an acceptable risk -- that it is simply the cost of doing business. Ewusi-Mensah argues that understanding the factors involved in development failures will help developers and businesses bring down the rate of software failure and abandoned projects.

Ewusi-Mensah explores the reasons software development projects are vulnerable to failure and why issues of management and organization are at the core of any failed project. He examines these projects not from a deterministically technical perspective but as part of a complex technical and social process; he proposes a framework of factors that contribute to the decision to abandon a project and enumerates the risks and uncertainties inherent in each phase of a project's life cycle. Exploring the multiplicity of factors that make software development risky, he presents empirical data that is reinforced by analyses of the reported cases. He emphasizes the role of the user in the development process and considers the effect of organizational politics on a project. Finally, he considers what lessons can be learned from past failures and how software development practices can be improved.

Kweku Ewusi-Mensah is Professor of Computer Information Systems at Loyola Marymount University.

 

 

Table of Contents:

Preface ix
I Conceptual Issues 1
1 Software Development Project Failures 3
2 Software Project Characteristics 29
3 Factors Critical to Abandoned Software Projects 47
II Empirical Factors 71
4 Socioorganizational Factors and Abandoned Projects 73
5 Technical Factors and Abandoned Projects 107
6 Economic Factors and Abandoned Projects 137
7 User Perspectives on Software Development Failures 153
III Learning from Failures 187
8 Postabandonment Review: Learning from Abandoned Projects 189
9 Software Development: A Strategic Paradigm 221
10 Project Failures and Aftermath 239
References 255
Index 265

商品描述(中文翻譯)

描述:
《軟體開發失敗》一書中,Kweku Ewusi-Mensah提供了一個以實證為基礎的研究,解釋了為什麼軟體開發失敗以及如何避免這些失敗。書中分析了一些案例,包括著名的Confirm旅遊業預訂系統、FoxMeyer的Delta、國稅局的稅務系統現代化、丹佛國際機場的行李處理系統以及CODIS。

據估計,三分之一的軟體開發項目因成本超支、延遲和功能減少而失敗或被放棄。有些人認為這是可以接受的風險,只是業務成本的一部分。Ewusi-Mensah認為,了解開發失敗的因素將有助於開發人員和企業降低軟體失敗和放棄項目的比率。

Ewusi-Mensah探討了軟體開發項目易受失敗的原因,並指出管理和組織問題是任何失敗項目的核心。他從一個複雜的技術和社會過程的角度來研究這些項目,提出了導致放棄項目決策的因素框架,並列舉了項目生命週期的每個階段中存在的風險和不確定性。他探討了使軟體開發具有風險的多樣因素,並提供了報告案例分析所支持的實證數據。他強調了使用者在開發過程中的角色,並考慮了組織政治對項目的影響。最後,他考慮了從過去失敗中可以學到的教訓以及如何改進軟體開發實踐。

Kweku Ewusi-Mensah是洛約拉瑪利蒙特大學的計算機信息系教授。

目錄:
前言
I. 概念問題
1. 軟體開發項目失敗
2. 軟體項目特性