Sachin Mathews

Business Project Management

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

Executive Summary
This paper has two objectives. One to uncover the potential reasons of software project
failures and discuss the critical factors that influence successful projects. The other to
evaluate the validity of the statement given in assessment, that is taken from Attarzadeh
(2008). The first part of the paper analyses the trends of IT project success rates over the
past two decades and then describes the critical factors that cause software project failures
in detail. The paper then tries to recognize what constitutes a successful IT Project from the
IT industry's perspective and explore the possible ways by which success rate can be
improved by citing few of the best practices from sources within the industry. This paper
then discusses the research findings along with inferences drawn and finally give our
recommendations that can help managers to better navigate the common pitfalls in IT
project management and enable them to achieve higher success rates.
In terms of the scope of the paper, it is limited to the reasons for failure or success of IT
and software projects and does not go into projects related to the other management aspects
of an organization, such as sales or marketing or the affect IT projects have on them.
For the purpose of the research, the author of this paper mainly used articles from journals
pertaining to Information Technology that are listed in section 2. We also used conference
papers and world accepted reports such as IEEE, Standish Group reports, along with
articles and popular books on this subject written by renowned experts from the industry
and notable authors to support our research.
The main findings of the research are that around 60 percent of IT Project fails. This
percentage is excluding those that are challenged or have cost and schedule overruns. The
paper broadly classifies the reasons found into three categories, which are people,
organizational culture and processes and lack of proper resources and technological
platforms. The paper explores the critical failure factors falling under each category in
detail. After analysing the causes of IT project failure, we feel that the use of agile methods
such as Crystal, Extreme programming and Rational Unified Process along with some best
practices in terms of organizational management and having a Project Manager with
appropriate skill set and experience and good top management support can help IT projects
to be more successful. However we feel that further research needs to be done in order to
find out what constitutes IT project success especially in some specific cases.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

1. Introduction
In this global age, an age where speed, accessibility and visibility are the talking point,
companies rely heavily on Information Technology for their business performance. This
fact has been validated beyond doubt as companies are incessantly trying to use IT where
ever applicable in order to optimize their resources, be it manpower, finances, material or
information flow and most importantly "time" to gain competitive advantage and increase
profitability. Software companies on the other end are trying to get as many projects as they
can to garner greater respectability, expand their business and obviously their bottom-line.
However, it's not a rosy picture for software firms who develop these softwares.
In November 2012, the U.S Air force had to give up the "Expeditionary Combat Support
System" an ERP project, after it racked up $1 Billion, with only one forth its original scope
completed. It would need additional time, and would not be completed until 2020. The
department felt it would not be suitable as it was not improving anything in terms of
military application and was eventually scraped. Kanaracus. (2012). There are many such
cases of projects being scraped in various industries.
Software projects have a high failure rate compared to other projects which is matter of
great concern not only for the IT industry but to all those companies who use them, as it
can incur huge losses in terms of money, time and resources as seen in the above examples.
In this paper we explore why this happens, what are the critical factors that cause IT
projects to fail. We also look at ways by which we can improve the success rate and explain
some key methodologies used by successful projects. We then discuss the findings, weather
it substantiates the statement provided in the assessment, from Attarzadeh (2008). Finally
the paper gives its recommendations to have better success rate in the future.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

2. Scope of the Literature Review

3. Software Project Management

The term "Software" is a widespread term and can be applied in a variety of ways
depending on the requirement. For example there are real time, engineering and scientific,
embedded, personal computer, artificial intelligence softwares. Softwares are intended to
improve the overall efficiency of systems and process that use them. It is essential for
business, science and engineering at hence effects all areas of life. Software applications
are increasingly being used in various sectors such as telecom, banking, infrastructure,
manufacturing,

healthcare,

hospitality,

transportation,

defence

and

government

organizations to name a few. They have become an integral part of any office, for the main
purpose of speeding up process by automation and information sharing. It has become the
single most important technology in the world and is an excellent example of "law of
unintended consequences" as described by Kelkar (2013).
A software project like any other project is a mission to create a platform that will make the
end user's life easy. It is limited by time, budget and people and constitutes of certain
performance specification and features to meet the user expectation. It involves what is
4

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

known as "software programming" which is building a software tool or application using

programming languages. It could either use "object oriented" programming languages like
C++,Java, Linux or "assembly level" like microprocessor 8085/86, or even "hardware
development" language like VHDL. And there are different methods of system
development each using different tools to accomplish the same task ( examples - object
oriented, rapid prototyping, waterfall etc.) Dorsey (2005) Stepanek. (2012)
Project management as Schawalbe (2011) describes it is " the application of knowledge,
skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements." The project
manager along with the project team must make every effort to meet the specific scope,
time, cost, quality and goals of projects while facilitating the entire process to meet needs,
the wants and the expectations of the customer. Software Project Management as the term
suggests deals with management of every stage of the development cycle and the proper
management of the people involved, or its stakeholders Mc Leod (2011). They include the
project sponsor, project manager, client, client team, solution architect, consultants, subcontractor. A example of a IT project roadmap is shown in the figure 1 and the stakeholders
that are involved in an IT project are shown in figure 2.

Figure 10: Example of a IT Project Roadmap, Source - Kothari (2010)

Figure 2 : Stakeholders in a IT project Source - Kothari (2010)

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

3.1 Why is Software Development Different?

In order to better understand why software projects fail we first need to understand what
makes Software Projects so different from other kinds of projects. Stepanek. (2012) an
experienced team leader and software developer describes how complexity, conceptuality,
frequent technological changes that are inevitable ( For example, Java 6 a programming
language, had 81 updates, each differing significantly) which results in the lack of
developer's expertise in the new technology, lack of proven best practices. These factors
along with some others make software development unique and different from other
projects. To explain it in a lucid way he tells us that software development is not just a
method to build software but also a process of learning how to build the software that is
best suited for its function. No software is perfect as first envisioned it will always require
changes, to make it more suitable to its role.

3.2 IT Project Success Rate Trends

Kraft (2008) observe that on a average 66 % IT project fail, with 52 % project being
cancelled and 82 % being delivered late. These stats might look shocking given the fact
that companies invest huge amount of money on IT projects. In order to validate this data
we explored a few other reports and came across the Standish Group Report Rubenstein
(2007), that says in 2007, 35 % of software projects started in 2006 were completed
successfully compared to 16% in 1994, which was a significant improvement Cerpa and
Verner (2009).

Figure 3: IT Project Success Rate, Source - Chaos Research 2012 Standish (2013)

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

The latest report "Chaos Manifesto 2013" by the same group suggest that it has further
improved to about 39% as shown in Figure 3, indicating that the industry is responding
well to the situation Standish (2013). However, the fact that still around 60% are either
unsuccessful or had cost and schedule overruns or dint deliver the required features means
there is much more to be done. Figure 4 illustrates the percentages of time, cost overruns
and features for the period - 2004 to 2012. As shown there has been an increase in time and
cost overruns since 2010 ( 71 to 74%). Although, percentage of projects failing to meet the
"features" that is nothing but the specified functional requirements has gone down a bit to
69%, but is still higher than during the period from 2004 to 2008. These stats are very high
and is a reason for concern in many organizations in the world as lot of the company's
resources like people, time, money, hardware and software can be saved as stated by Purna
Sudhakar (2012).

Figure 4 : IT Project Overruns and Features, Source - Chaos Research 2012 Standish (2013)

3.3 Why Software Projects Fail

"If there's more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will end in disaster, then
somebody will do it that way." Murphys Law. The current scenario of IT projects sums
up this statement. So Why do software project fail ? Let us look at some of the causes of
project failure that we have explored in our paper.
Existing literature on software projects failure point towards that failure are caused by the
project environment, tasks, process and individuals Lehtinen, Mntyl et al. (2014). For the
purpose of this research paper we broadly classify the reasons for failures into three
categories which are people, organizational culture and process, and the lack of proper
resources and technology which are discussed in detail in the following sections.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

3.3.1 Effect of People

(i) Lack of understanding between participants of a software project system
Project coordination, collaboration and common understanding among the stakeholder is
necessary for a project to be successful as portrayed by Imtiaz (2013). However this is
sometimes what is lacking. This could be between users and developers or among the
developers within a project team. The developers may have good technical knowledge but
lack the business knowledge and on the other hand users lack the technical understanding.
What results is a difference in expectations. The developers might perceive certain aspects
to be important and may enhance or add new features, but these may not be useful or
required by the customer. The aspects that are essential to their jobs might not be there.
This in turn can make their jobs more complicated as it may require additional steps that
are unnecessary making it "non-fit". In addition, many of the projects are outsourced to
companies in different countries, and hence factors like geographical distance, cultural
differences and languages (at a communication level) add to lack of understanding between
participants.
(ii) Lack of User Involvement
User involvement is another aspect that needs to be present throughout the project
development cycle. Most of the time the user involvement will be good at the start of the
project but at this stage all systems requirements that are needed to make it a complete fit
for the purpose cannot be well understood. Majid, Noor et al. (2010) had carried out a
research in this regard and found that software professionals tend not to include the end
users in the technical meetings which then results in the not involvement of users in
formulating the type of software used. This is why in many cases we see that user
satisfaction is not met.
(iii) Lack of people with the required technical skills
Technical as well as business and soft skills of the team members and the project manager
plays a crucial role in success of software projects as validated by Mc Leod (2011). Earlier
while differentiating from software project from other projects we learnt that software
technology keeps undergoing changes. This leads to lack of knowledge of new platforms.
The team members need to adapt to the changes quickly or need to be trained as per the
latest tools or versions required for the project. It becomes even more important for the
project manager to have solid knowledge of the platforms, software version and programs
8

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

to better guide the team. In addition to this, he must also have the ability to lead, negotiate,
communicate, assess his teams capabilities and be able to reorganize and solve problems
quickly and effectively. Jiang (2007) in their paper discusses how these aspects effect the
performance of software projects. In his research he establishes how Information Systems
(IS) personal skills and project performance is to some extent mediated by organizational
technology learning. Hence skill set of the people involved in development is a critical
factor for software project success.
3.3.2 Effect of Organizational Culture and Process
(i) Lack of Project Selection and Insufficient Planning
Planning is the foremost step in an IT project. It refers to the process of deciding in
advance what to do, where to do and with what resources. It is at this stage that cost
estimates, team size and composition, the customer requirement, project assumptions and
other resource planning activities pertaining to the IT environment and systems are
established. It is also in this stage where "Software Requirement Specification" or SRS is
defined. This is a basic component of any software development project and when not well
defined can cause misunderstandings. Imprecise or an unconvincing business case might
lead to lack of proper approvals which in turn leads poor estimation and causes project
failure.
(ii) Lack of Top Management Support and Commitment
The entrepreneur in the company is the one who makes the strategic decision and thus it
goes without saying he plays the most important role in terms of the 'decision context'. All
studies done so far point towards this attribute as a critical success factor. The management
need to be aware upfront or be visibly and vocally behind a project. In some cases a strong
backup from top management can turn things around for projects that are going badly or is
going through a bad implementation phase. Commitment is another aspect that is
important.

At times change of management occurs in the client company. The new

manager might not understand the initial project scope and might not have the complete
knowledge of processes involved and sometimes may withheld approvals. He may not
want to pursue the project in the current manner for a variety of reasons as elucidated by
Imtiaz (2013). Also the project team might not be able to easily communicate and convince
the new manager. This leads to project failure.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

(iv) Project scope or scope creep is managed poorly

Not all projects that are cancelled can be termed as failure. For example, some projects
though well managed gets cancelled because of the expediency of original purpose ceases
and can be no longer applicable Jrgensen (2014). In some of these cases, what happens is
that the project scope is extended beyond the initial requirement also known as "scope
creep" in order to meet the new objectives. This uncontrolled changes that keep occurring
during the project life cycle leads to project failure.
(v) Deadlines and project goals are unrealistic
It has been researched that there is close relation between the expectations or project goals
and pressure caused by deadlines and the skills set of the team. At times, project leads
neglect to understand that it's not practically possible to cover all aspects of the project
within the stipulated time frame. Even over estimating the capabilities and skills of team
members add on to this. This may be due to lack of experience of the project lead in
properly analysing the situation. All these factors put together, lead to not meeting the
desired objectives within the stipulated time frame.
(vi) Absence or Bad Risk Management
This one aspect that has not be adhered to sufficiently enough even in the latest context of
new agile methodologies being adopted by companies for software project success. Not
giving due attention to risk management can cause projects to fail. Risks are unplanned
events that can occur at any stage of the SDLC cycle. These may include workforce issues
and financial conditions on both the clients either or the developers side. These
unprecedented events include global recession, natural calamities in either ones location,
high dependence on certain project team members and their unavailability, certain failures
of technical platforms etc. Some of these can't be predicted but there many management
process like the predictive risk analysis for example that can be used tackle the threats of
these risks. In his paper de Bakker, Boonstra et al. (2012) discusses how risk management
can be approached with regard to the IT Industry in particular.
3.3.3 Effect of Lack of Resources and Appropriate Technological Platforms
Insufficient allotment or Poor estimation where initially itself project receives fewer
resources than that would be required for carrying out the planned activities is one of the
main causes of project failure. These resources could be in terms of people with

10

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

appropriate skill set, appropriate technological platforms needed and the availability of
financial resources. Many times projects goes wrong because wrong and inappropriate
technology choices. A project may receive the right resources but if managed poorly leads
to wastage and requirement of additional resources. Imtiaz (2013) points out that
availability of these resources- financial, people and technology are dependent on the Top
Management support discussed earlier.

3.4 Defining IT Project Success

Figure 4: Defining IT Project Success, Source - 2013 IT Project Success Rate Survey Scott W. (2013)

The above figure illustrates what IT professionals consider a successful project based on
survey carried out in 2013 by Scott W. (2013) . Majority felt completing project on time
was the most important determinant for defining project success, were as 36 % believed it
was to be within budget constraints and 14% felt it was to meet the desired specifications.
Agarwal (2006) in their research found that most of the stakeholders of IT project
management team consider 'scope' of the software project as the most important criteria for
defining success. Scope includes the functionality and quality of project outcome.
Schawalbe (2011) in her book gives a more inclusive definition of IT project success,
saying if it met scope, time, cost goals, satisfied customer or the sponsor.

11

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

3.4.1 Critical Factors of IT Project Success

From the above discussion on what constitutes a successful IT project and after
understanding the causes of IT project failure the paper find these factors to be most
important for IT project success. Most of these factors were explained in section 3.3 and
supported by research carried out by Imtiaz (2013) .
(i) Proper Planning and Estimation
(ii) Avoiding Scope Creep
(iii) Top management support
(iv) Well Qualified Project team and Project Manager
(iv) Clear Goals
(v) Effective monitoring and control
(vi) Customer or User Involvement throughout the SDLC
(vii) Proper Risk Management
In order to have greater IT Project Success rate firms need to adopt "agile" practices that
cover the entire SDLC. This is discussed briefly in the following section.
3.4.2 Use of new Agile Software Engineering Methods to achieve Project Success
The emergence of agile software engineering methods as compared to conventional
methods have improved the overall efficiency in software development Chow and Cao
(2008). Agile methods give greater flexibility and responsiveness in environment of
constant change. Some of the agile methods used in the software industry are Crystal,
Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Feature driven development (FDD), Dynamic System
Development Method (DSDM), Adaptive Software development (ASD), and Lean
Software Development (LD) and Joint Application Design (JAD) Koch (2005). The book
explains how adopting these new practices helps in improving the overall project
performance. For example XP's pair programming concept programmers can learn from
each other and monitor each other's progress. It includes the simple designing methods that
help in keeping the complexity of the software within the skill level of the whole team.

12

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

4. Discussion
In today's world, no field is without software programmes and systems. To work effectively
one must be able to articulate one's needs to the Software developer in order to get a system
that best works in the business environment. In order to do this the IT user must be able to
"speak the IT language". As we have seen that all is not well with Software Project
Management with success rate currently being a mere 40 %. Hence I do agree with factors
discussed which are quite valid especially with regard to the software industry.
But there is another side to it. The definition of IT project success with regard to the time budget requirement is usually decided by the vendor or supplier. There needs to be a
stakeholders perspective while defining success as well. Also the fact that most of the time,
the budget and timelines are set at the start when uncertainty is at its maximum it is
practically impossible to define the project success criteria at that stage. In addition as we
have seen in section 3.1 how software development is unique in its own way and have
constant technological changes that are inevitable, along with the fact that all techniques
need not work with specific types of project I feel that there are more things that need to be
considered in terms of the definition of IT project success. Hence the statement found in
Attarzadeh (2008) is valid.

5. Recommendations
All is not lost for IT projects. I feel there are certain things that need to be set right, some of
which are quite basic in nature with regard to project management, this along with best
practices followed by leading firms could enhance the project success rate. Some of the
key recommendations that I would like to propose in order to have IT project success in the
future based on the research carried out are discussed below.
(i) Team Motivation and Collaborative Atmosphere plays a critical role in project
success. Higher the motivation greater will be the overall output. I find this the single most
important factor especially considering the fact that there is a lot of pressure when it comes
to software projects. People get disgruntled fast especially when things don't go right.
Sometimes they even leave their jobs in middle of the project. How well the project lead
can motivate the team when the chips are down, when there are disagreements or when
deadlines are approaching close, more the chances of the project succeeding. I would also
like to includes aspects such as user involvement, and better understanding between all

13

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

stakeholders, discussed in section 3.3.1 under this point. There needs to be an overall
collaborative atmosphere among team members, internal and external stakeholders,
solution architects, client team and the executive sponsor.
(ii) Manager should use Best Practices and Lessons Learned
In order minimize or avoid the nastiest scope creep, a project manger should contemplate
even minor changes to the initial project scope cautiously and rework the course of events ,
provide new estimates and communicate it with all the stakeholders before incorporating
the changes. Jones (2010) discusses about fifty best practices used by highly successful
software project companies like Microsoft, IBM, Sony and EDS. The author explores how
these practices can ensure success in the field of software engineering. One practice for
example is instilling a process of continuous improvement while modelling the software
development process which can have a good impact on the performance of future projects.
(iii) Use of Agile Methods
I believe the use of latest Agile methods can be very effective technique and can turn things
around for IT projects. It covers all aspects of the SDLC right from planning to delivery in
a very unique and effective way. Many of the methodologies discussed in section 3.4.2 are
not yet being followed on a large scale and more the companies use them better will be the
end results. However there is much more to be done with regard to use of agile methods to
mitigate risk.

6. Conclusion
Summary: This paper investigated the prime factors that affects software project success.
The study was carried out in order to understand why there is such a low success rate for
IT projects compared to other projects.
Findings : We found that currently the project success rate of IT projects is around 40
percent section 3.1 that is quite low compared to other kinds of projects and causes huge
losses to companies. Nevertheless, in our study, we also found that the industry is
responding well by incorporating new and agile methods that has helped in improving the
success rate over the last decade. In addition we found that Project Managers play an
important role. They need to inculcate a habit of using best practices and have a continuous
learning mentality that can help the entire team in meeting the project deliverables.

14

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

Limitation : We limited the scope of this study to projects pertaining to the Information
Technology sector or the software projects and its success criteria. We did not explore the
affects, IT projects have on other management aspects of an organization, such as sales or
marketing. Also our paper does not look into specific IT projects where additional
determinants needs to be considered in defining "success". Further research needs to be
carried out for analysing and understanding these factors in a more comprehensive way.

7. Reflection
Coming from a Telecomm management background there were many things I could
connect with in terms of project management, but nonetheless the learning curve was a
steep one for me as it had a lot to do with software projects in particular. In order to find
the criteria for success and failure, I had to start from square one, which was understanding
the fundamentals of IT Project Management and how IT Project Management differ from
other kinds of projects. The next challenge was to understand the way IT projects are done
in the real world, the processes, tools and techniques. Only then could I move towards
critical analysis of the project cycle and its pitfalls. There are two books I liked in
particular and would like to mention. One was Schawalbe (2011) and the other Stepanek.
(2012) which helped me understand information technology projects in a better way. From
the research, I learnt that a Project Manager plays a crucial role in building the team and
delivering a successful system. He needs to have experience, good technical and analytical
skills along with exceptional soft skills that are needed to bring the team together and get
the best from each team member. I also learnt a few things about the latest technological
and statistical methods that are used in better analysing the pitfalls in software
development and how they improve the process in order to achieve greater success.

15

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

8. References
Agarwal, N., Rathod,Urvashi (2006). "Defining 'success' for software projects :
An Explanatory reveleation." International Journal of Project Management(24):
358-370.
Attarzadeh, I., Hock,Siew (2008). "Project Management Practices: The Criteria
for Success or Failure " Communications of the IBIMA: 234-241.
Cerpa, N. and J. M. Verner (2009). "Why did your project fail?" Communications
of the ACM 52(12): 130-134.
Chow, T. and D.-B. Cao (2008). "A survey study of critical success factors in
agile software projects." Journal of Systems and Software 81(6): 961-971.
de Bakker, K., A. Boonstra and H. Wortmann (2012). "Risk managements'
communicative effects influencing IT project success." International Journal of
Project Management 30(4): 444-457.
Dorsey, P., Dr., (2005) "Top 10 reasons why systems project fail."
Imtiaz, A., Md.,Al-Mudhary,S.,Abduljalil,Mirashemi,Taha.Md.,Ibrahim,Roslina
(2013). "Critical Success factors of Information Technology Projects."
International Jornal of Social,Management,Economics and Business Engineering
7(12): 1879-1874.
Jiang, J., Klein,Gary,Beck,Phil,Wang,G.,T.,Eric (2007). "Lack of Skills Risks to
Organizational Technology Learning and software Project performance."
Information Resources Management Journal 20(3): 32-44.
Jones, C. (2010). Software Engineering Best Practices. New York, NY, USA
McGraw-Hill, Inc. .
Jrgensen, M. (2014). "Failure factors of small software projects at a global
outsourcing marketplace." Journal of Systems and Software 92(0): 157-169.
Kanaracus., C. (2012). The scariest software project horror stories of 2012 Billions of dollars were wasted and tempers ran hot as multiple projects hit the
skids this year. IDG News Service.
Kelkar, A., S., (2013). Software project management - a concise study. Delhi,
PHI Learning Private Ltd.
Koch, S., Allan (2005). Agile Software Development: Evaluating the Methods for
Your Organizations. Norwood,MA 02062, Artech House.
Kothari, D., Mitchell,Romeo (2010). Baselining the Schedule. NASA Project
Management Challenge 2010.
Kraft, T. (2008). Systematic and holistic IT Project Management approach for
commercial software with case studies. 3311415 D.M.I.T., Lawrence
Technological University.
Lehtinen, T. O. A., M. V. Mntyl, J. Vanhanen, J. Itkonen and C. Lassenius
(2014). "Perceived causes of software project failures An analysis of their
relationships." Information and Software Technology 56(6): 623-643.
Majid, R. A., N. L. M. Noor, W. A. W. Adnan and S. Mansor (2010). A survey on
user involvement in software Development Life Cycle from practitioner's
perspectives. Computer Sciences and Convergence Information Technology
(ICCIT), 2010 5th International Conference on.
Mc Leod, L., MacDonell,G.,S., (2011). "Factors that Effect Software Systems
Development Project Outcomes - A Survey of Research " ACM Computing
Surveys (CSUR) 43(4): 24.
Purna Sudhakar, G. (2012). "A model of critical success factors for software
projects." Journal of Enterprise Information Management 25(6): 537-558.
Rubenstein, D., D. (2007). Standish Group Report: There's Less Development
Chaos Today. Standish Group Report.
Schawalbe, K. (2011). Managing Information Technology Projects, Course
Technology, Cengage Learning.
16

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS

Scott W., A. (2013) "2013 IT Project Success Rates Survey Results." Ambysoft.
Standish, G. (2013). The Chaos Manifesto 2013 - think big,act small: 1-52.
Stepanek., G. (2012). Software Project Secrets - Why Software Projects Fail,
apress.

17