Factors Contribute to High Costs of Software Projects

Abstract

In the software industry, an unsuccessful software development project bears the characteristics that it would have fewer features, be late, and be over budget. We participated in a project that suffered all the three characteristics. Looking back, we realized that we have made many wrong decisions. This paper, serving as a case study, discusses these mistakes, especially the major ones that contributed to the failure. The hope is that readers can benefit from the lessons we have learned in their future software development projects and have a better chance to make right decisions in similar situations.