Re: Non-Technical Factors

The Standish Group performed a study (The Standish Group, "Unfinished Voyages" (1996), http://www.standishgroup.com) on factors which contribute to the success of an IT project. These factors were subsequently ranked with respect to relative importance:

Success Criterion	Relative Importance
User Involvement	19
Executive Management Support	16
Clear Statement of Requirements	15
Proper Planning	11
Realistic Expectations	10
Smaller Project Milestones	9
Competent Staff	8
Ownership	6
Clear Visions and Objectives	3
Hardworking, Focused Staff	3
Total	100

The results of this study go to suggest that project success is most likely to be achieved through involvement of project stakeholders, support of the project at an executive level and clear statements of requirements - Some pretty interesting stuff to remember when working on IT projects.

Update - Information about the Unfinished Voyages study can be found at http://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research/unfinished_voyages_1.php

perl -le "print unpack'N', pack'B32', '00000000000000000000001000000000'"

Comment on Re: Non-Technical Factors

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Re^2: Non-Technical Factors by thor (Priest) on Jul 08, 2005 at 11:15 UTC
I find it difficult to believe that "Competent Staff" ranks so low. I also find it interesting (not necessarily good or bad) that this list seems to support what's currently en vogue as far as development methodologies go. That is to say, the above table looks an aweful lot like a checklist for agile methods. thor `Feel the white light, the light within Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will For all of us waiting, your kingdom will come`	[reply]
Re^3: Non-Technical Factors by adrianh (Chancellor) on Jul 08, 2005 at 16:45 UTC
I find it difficult to believe that "Competent Staff" ranks so low. Even with the very best people most projects will foul up without user involvement, management support, decent requirements, etc. That is to say, the above table looks an aweful lot like a checklist for agile methods More like a list of the things that agile methodologies try and address. For example the agile-folk approach to getting a "Clear Statement of Requirements" is rather different from that of the non-agile folk :-)	[reply]
Re^3: Non-Technical Factors by rob_au (Abbot) on Jul 08, 2005 at 12:26 UTC
It is worth reminding that this is a list of relative importance of the identified factors - Nothing on this list should be considered as unimportant in the success of an IT project, but rather the weighting is a reflection of relative importance within these factors alone. It should be noted too that none of these factors are methodology specific - Indeed some of these success factors have been identified by other contributors to this thread and are consistent across not only software development methodologies, but also distinct project management and risk management methodologies. `perl -le "print unpack'N', pack'B32', '00000000000000000000001000000000'"`	[reply]