Software failures occur frequently and cost billions of dollars annually. They are often caused by a combination of factors including unrealistic project goals, poor requirements definition, lack of management support, and immature technologies. Additionally, large projects are more likely to fail due to their greater scale and complexity. Adopting best practices like the Capability Maturity Model can help organizations reduce failures by improving their development processes.

1. 1Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh

2.  Software failures take place all over the world.
 It happens to large companies and small ones.
 It happens to commercial, non-profit or even
to government organizations.
 Business and social impacts are wasted
taxpayers and shareholders money as well
investments.
 The cost compensated for software failure is
now billion dollars per year.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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3.  1 trillion dollars will be invested this year of
which 5% to 15% will be abandoned before or
right after the delivery of the software
 Software failures are avoidable and
predictable.
 Most organizations do not urge to avoid
failures.
 The risk is even harming or destroying the
whole organization.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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4.  Average companies spend 4% to 5% of their
investment on IT while financial and
telecommunication companies invest about
15% on IT.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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5.  It jeopardizes entire prospects of an
organization.
 IT failure in government can imperil national
security.
 Failure can also stunt economic growth and
quality of life.
 Cost of litigation faced by organizations due to
the unsatisfied customers.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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6.  Unrealistic project goals.
 Inaccurate estimates of required resources.
 Poorly defined system requirements.
 Poor project status reporting.
 Unmanaged risks.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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7.  Poor communications among developers,
users and customers.
 Use of immature technology.
 Inability to handle project complexities.
 Poor project management.
 Stakeholder politics.
 Commercial pressure.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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8.  IT projects fail because of one or two reasons-
this is rare case.
 It is in faction combination of technical,
project management and business decisions.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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9.  If a single mistake is seen in some place during
the project run, it is required to solve that bug
immediately.
 Else the cost of unwrapping the works up to
the glitch and solving the glitch will cost huge.
 changing documents and other calculations
are required then.
 But it has been proved that developers spend
40% to 50% on the rework.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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10.  Moreover, attempting a fix of an error may
raise other errors.
 In simple terms, IT projects fail when the
rework exceeds the value added works (actual
job) are budgeted for.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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11.  A developer never wants that software will
fail.
 So, when it fails we need to take a look at the
business environment, project management
and organizational culture as well.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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12.  Most organizations as they are in tough
competition, then intend to see software
projects not as investments but as costs that
must be controlled.
 Political exigencies can impact on the software
project cost and quality as well.
 Lack of upper management support can also
damn IT undertakings.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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13.  Often project managers lie about their project
progress, how much they will cost and what
functionalities they will provide, etc.
 Once IT projects fail then we should take a
look at the hardware and software used to
build up the IT project and what practices
were made during development.
 Using unrealistic and untested technology will
doom the project.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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14.  Size of project is another key factor.
 It is proved that large projects fail 4-5 times
greater than small projects.
 The larger the project the more static
elements (software, hardware, etc) and
dynamic elements (integration, testing, etc).
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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15. 15Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh

16.  Sloppy development practice also causes
software failures.
 To help organizations to assess their software
and hardware Capability Maturity Model
(CMM) is proposed.
 It rates company’s practises against 5 levels of
maturity.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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17.  CMM level 1: Using ad hoc and chaotic
development process
 CMM level 3: Characterized its practises and
now it understands them
 CMM level 5: Quantitatively understands the
variations in the process and practises and it
applies them as well
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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18.  Bad decisions by project managers are
probably the single greatest cause of failures.
 Poor technical management can lead to
technical errors but it can be isolated and
solved.
 In contrast, poor project management is a
havoc.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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19.  An organization that values openness,
honesty, communication and collaboration is
more likely able to solve mistakes.
 The reasons that software projects fail are well
known and have been documented in many
documents over the years.
 By observing the current project environment
and these documents one can forecast the
perfection of the project.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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20.  Why Software Fails by Robert N. Charette:
This is an extraordinary article on software
failures. You must have to go meticulously
through the article. Don’t follow the numbers
and years in the examples given in the article.
You have to know the reasons and place
yourself to explain and think about software
failures.
Rushdi Shams, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh
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