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Tenpoundbass
2013 Aug 12, 12:45pm
Poor requirements analysis
It's been my experience with companies where projects failed.
They were so focused on the slide show part of the requirements, but then no real serious technical documents. Then the people that have the technical prowess to make sense of the business needs, are shielded from the requirement gathering.
Then once the project begins, and since there was no serious collaboration between the team members responsible, only slide show presentation with all of the suits present, complete with hamming and yucking. That the teams find inconsistent requirements, they can't get people to sign off them, because all the people that would approve those changes were the non technical douches that thought the slide show was "Slick".
I like being given a task then I just go around the Enterprise like Detective Colombo, and collaborating with those users, who's job it is to actually use the software on a productive capacity. Even if it requires moving things here and there, and making changes on the fly. Those projects always complete on time, with the least resources.
The IT department is a relic the whole Y2K industry con job that was sold by the "Consultants" in the 90s.
Gang of four is a great read and can be an excellent guide line to solve problems in design. But the biggest sin, is shops trying to use it as a blueprint for every project regardless the size or scope.
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http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures/study-68-percent-of-it-projects-fail/1175
This is absolutely true. Bad business requirements followed by bad technical requirements are the primary causes of failed IT projects. Management tends to want to jump right into cracking out the end product and thus sets up the company for failure.
All mistakes are cheaper to fix the sooner they are detected. Costs of mistakes increase exponentially with every stage of design, develop, deploy that passes. Thus it is fiscal suicide to rush the requirements and the design of an IT project. Yet, this is the normal situation in every field that uses IT including the software industry itself.