An application of quantitative techniques to the question of what contributes to a successful software development project

Objectively answering the question of what contributes to a successful software development project has traditionally been difficult due to a lack of empirical data. The software development industry rarely has access to a controlled environment to conduct experiments. This paper shows the results of an analysis carried out in a controlled environment on 36 student project teams over 3 years. In each year, each team was charged with implementing the same project with the same resources, and the same access to the client, on the same technical platform. This enabled an observation of the contribution of factors like total time spent, proportion of time spent on analysis and design, quality of project management, quality of team involvement processes deployed and use of a methodology on the quality of the final product. Product quality was measured in functionality and usability. The results give some clear pointers on how to get a good software product from a development team.