How to Save a Failing Project: Chaos to Control - Softcover

Young, Ralph R; Brady, Steven M; Nagle Jr, Dennis C

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567262392 ISBN 13: 9781567262391

Publisher: Kogan Page, 2010

Synopsis

How do you save a failing project when it seems like there's no turning back?



How to Save a Failing Project: Chaos to Control provides the knowledge and insight you need to recognise a project in trouble, determine what to do about it, and transform it into a success. You'll also discover methods, techniques, and tools to keep a project from getting into trouble in the first place.



? Understand the value of a project plan - and of updating this plan continuously as you execute the project

? Recognise signs that the project is deviating from the approach needed for successful completion

? Develop a set of metrics that provide insight into the health of your project

? Identify and implement steps to get your project back on track

? Prevent the fatal missteps that can lead to project failure

? Position your team for project success

About this title

About the Author

Ralph R. Young, DBA, is an active leader and contributor in systems, software, and process engineering. Dr. Young is the director of Engineering Process Improvement, Systems and Process Engineering, Defense Group at Northrop Grumman Information Technology, a leading provider of systems-based solutions. He supports internal and external projects to improve their capabilities to use process improvement techniques, implement effective requirements practices, and develop innovations to facilitate project management. Dr. Young is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and earned a Master of Arts in economics and a Doctorate in Business Administration at The George Washington University. He is the author of Effective Requirements Practices (Addison-Wesley, 2001) and The Requirements Engineering Handbook (Artech House, 2004).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

How to Save a Failing Project

Chaos to Control

By Ralph R. Young, Steven M. Brady, Dennis C. Nagle Jr.

Management Concepts Press

Copyright © 2009 Management Concepts, Inc.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-56726-239-1

Contents

FOREWORD, 
PREFACE, 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, 
INTRODUCTION, 
PART I Project awareness: How to Recognize a Failing Project, 
CHAPTER 1 why Projects Fail, 
CHAPTER 2 Is Your Project Out of Control?, 
Part II Project Planning: How to Recover a Failing Project, 
CHAPTER 3 Analyzing Your Project, 
CHAPTER 4 why create a Plan?, 
CHAPTER 5 creating the Plan, 
CHAPTER 6 Building a Team, 
CHAPTER 7 Identifying the Products, 
CHAPTER 8 Identifying the work, 
CHAPTER 9 Establishing a Schedule, 
PART III Project Execution: How to Minimize the Risk of Future Failure, 
CHAPTER 10 Executing the Plan, 
CHAPTER 11 Managing External and Internal Expectations, 
CHAPTER 12 Managing Scope, 
CHAPTER 13 Managing Quality, 
CHAPTER 14 Optimizing the Plan, 
FINAL THOUGHTS A Recommended Approach for Project Success, 
ACRONYMS, 
GLOSSARY, 
REFERENCES, 
INDEX, 

CHAPTER 1

Why Projects Fail

The data on project success rates are alarming. According to the Standish Group's CHAOS Report, based on biennial surveys of software project outcomes, about 75 percent of all software projects are delivered late or fail. The data also show that since 2002, the rate of successful project completion has dropped significantly.

Delayed projects are not problematic simply because they are late. On a late project, significant planned functionality is often discarded in an effort to stay on schedule and keep costs down. So the average schedule overrun of about 120 percent and average cost overrun of 100 percent shown in Figure 1-1 are significantly understated. Completing projects often takes more than twice as long and costs twice as much as we estimate! How can it be that we haven't made progress in delivering software on time or under budget? In 1981, Barry Boehm provided a seven-step approach to estimating software projects in Software Engineering Economics. Yet most projects today do not use even this level of discipline in preparing estimates.

Steve McConnell, author of Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art, writes, "The industry data show that the software industry has an underestimation problem. Before we can make our estimates more accurate, we need to start making the estimates bigger. That is the key challenge for many organizations." Industry expert Capers Jones writes that the root cause of project failure is poor project management, not technical issues or the competence and ability of technical personnel.

The failure to adequately plan using useful and effective measures is the root cause of project failure. This book will enable you to save a failing project. Even better, it will enable you to manage projects while reducing the risk of failure.

Key Factors Leading to Failure

While many factors lead to the failure of a project, in the authors' experience, a few specific, easily recognizable factors signal serious problems that jeopardize project success:

* Poorly defined requirements

* Scope creep

* Stakeholders have different expectations

* Stakeholders have unrealistic expectations

* There is no real need or demand for the product

* There is a lack of user involvement in the project

* Change management is lacking or ineffective

* Poor quality control

*

Edition details

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1567262392
• ISBN 13: 9781567262391
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280