Lack Of User Client Involvement

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

As mentioned earlier the Jama Software partnered with Ravenflow [], presented a survey report in 2011 which consist of over 808 participants of the software industry. In this survey, one interesting question was asked to every participant: when a project or product isn’t successful, what are typical causes? The answers as represented in Figure draw attention to three main points most typical for failure are unrealistic schedule or expectation, missing or poorly defined requirements and scope creep. The success of a project or product requires a tight control on the process of software development.

In Planit Testing Index 2012: Causes of Project Failure, mention some of the more reasons for failure and its percentage of contribution in it for 2012, which has been shown through the Figure 20 below [Planit]. According to these details, the one area of the Software Development Life Cycle that is always associated with project failure is poor management of changing business requirements. In 2012 there was no difference, unfortunately it rises to 68 percent and increase of 9 percent over the previous years. The rest factors in contribution of failure were reduction of project or IT budgets, changing government policy, technical, mergers or acquisitions of project and other.

Where as to make clear about the percentage and factors in contribution for failure of the projects in the Figure, following are the details:

Let’s take a look at a few of the foremost problems within the software development approaches which require considerable attention are:

2.4.1 Extracting Requirements

Extracting the requirements of a desired software product is the first task in creating it. Sometimes the goal of a project may be only partially clear due to a poor requirement gathering in the definition stage of a project [MN]. Many projects have high levels, vague and generally unhelpful requirements. This leads the developers having no input from the user and build what they believe is required, without having any real knowledge of the business for which the project is being developed. Inevitably when the system is delivered, the user declares, it does not do what they needed it to. Defining clear requirements for a project can take time and lots of communication, but sometimes goals and objectives might be unclear because project sponsors lack the experience to describe what they really require [DP]. The user should know what they require from the project and be able to specify it clearly. However as a user is non-IT specialist, developer must extracting requirements from the user through his/her skills and experience in software engineering [AG].

2.4.2 Lack of User/Client Involvement

In development of software projects, lack of user involvement can lead the project to miss or poorly defined requirements. User involvement makes the development team of the project committed to the product, which otherwise may be the reason of project failure [JH]. The senior management of the developing product needs to establish a working environment in which the customer can actively participate in the project and communicate with the team. This helps the development team to get a clear view of the functionality required for a project.

2.4.3 Varying Requirement

If software project requirements are poorly defined (unclear, incomplete, not reflective of business goals and objectives) projects are more likely to fail. Varying requirements which are not controlled are bound to hinder the project outcome [MW]. Establishing control on the varying requirement gives stable guidelines that determine how and when requirements can be added, removed or implemented, and how the costs can be applied to these changes, prior to the project execution, can help in the successful completion of the project.

2.4.4 Unrealistic Schedule or Expectations

Projects with unrealistic schedule or expectations are also about equally likely to be poorly managed projects that fail to validate the feasibility of satisfying user expectations, or well-managed projects that try to validate feasibility and find unavoidable factors, such as immature technology, overhyped COTS products, or a saturated market that justifies a project’s prompt termination [ZP]. Software developers are locked into their favorite solution or approach and are unwilling to accept a different idea. Spend more time leading and less time controlling.

2.4.5 Over Budget

Late projects usually cause costs. One of the causes of budget over run is the employment of more staff to try and make sure that the project is delivered on time, and with all the required features [AL]. Sometimes, the client is not even aware that the budget has been over shot until the bill arrives. This is a symptom of bad project management, and can be avoided. Any late cycle changes in hardware or software specifications will cause a project to run over budget. These needs of the client are required to be controlled. Of course, if the client has been made aware that their request will cause an overrun, then this might be acceptable for the benefits that the new development brings.

2.4.6 Testing

The project failure is often caused by lack of proper testing [AP]. While software developers focus on creating code, they do not deal with testing. Testers are those who should do "testing" during the development process [VY]. Without documented business procedures, there is no clear basis for testing the system and no way of gauging the benefits of implementation. Even the most sophisticated software testing methodologies and tools require a detailed definition of what is expected of the software to be given before their sophistication can be fully exploited [MR]. Without a process definition this is not possible to provide. Regression testing is not performed at each release and functionality formerly present in the software is not verified and can be lost. The result of all this is a system that is not fulfilling business needs, and which is falling short of expectations.

2.4.7 No Explicit Control Steps in Development

The projects generally fail due to poor or no control on the development [JV]. Proper control needs to be performed on vague/changing/new requirements, to overcome the undesirable effects on the system. Uncontrolled development leads to over budget, poor quality and testing. Each phase of development must progress under controlled monitor. Proper controlling can prevent poor performance. This is one of the golden rules of any undertaking project, but is even more important for IT projects. A complex system needs more control over development than other, simpler ones.

2.5 CONCLUSION

A range of software process models and analysis on various issues in software development projects are studied. The discussion is done on various reports, which exhibit the failure of a software product. Projects run over budget or are terminated prematurely and those that reach completion often fall far short of meeting user expectations and business functionalities. A few vital factors are also discussed. Each framework or methodology on its own could not perfectly deal with all the identified critical success factors [MN]. This study shows the need to develop a new approach or methodology to resolve the major issues of software development.