The Standish Group’s Chaos reports (the 1994 original study and the recent 2001 update) have caused a tremendous waste of IT dollars. Just look at tool site after tool site - project management, collaboration, software development, modeling tools - the numbers from the Chaos report are given as a key reason for buying particular products. These reports are heralded as verification that the software development community is in a sorry state of affairs and that we must all be unprofessional, undisciplined, and immature. Every time I see these reports referenced, I get a gagging reflex.
If software is in such a sorry state of affairs, why are three of the richest (at least before the recent market slide) people in the world software people - Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Paul Allen? Why is software the driving force behind nearly every technology, from the Web to bioengineering? According to the Chaos reports, in 1994 82% of all projects were “challenged” or “failures.” In 2001 we got a lot better - only 72% were “not” successful. How can we reconcile the overwhelming intrusion of software into every nook and cranny of our corporate, governmental, and personal lives with a 72% “not successful” rate? We can’t. Maybe it’s time we seriously challenged these numbers.
But before we begin, a quick caveat: software development, just as anything we undertake - from accounting to manufacturing - has room for improvement. Many of the suggestions proposed by the Standish Group and others have a lot of merit. But it’s time to forget the scare tactics - they just don’t jibe with reality…
Read more at: Max Wideman