Why do Enterprise Software Projects Fail?

Most Enterprise Software projects are seldom delivered on time, on budget and within the intended scope, therefore, are not completely successful in the strictest sense of the word!

My experience of why these projects fail are based on the following data points:

1. Lack of soliciting user feedback early and often – Including users from the inception of the project is key to delivering applications that users really want to use. It also makes the system feel like their system.
2. Poorly defined requirements – Poorly defined requirements occurs in two ways. First, you can miss requirements that are key to the success of the project. Second, you can have requirements that do not have well defined acceptance criteria. Either way the project cannot succeed without well-defined requirements.
3. Unrealistic timeline\schedule – Having an unrealistic timeline leads to short-term oriented thinking that causes the project to take longer than anticpated. Many organizations try to get around this by trying to be “agile”, thinking they can bypass requirements gathering by commencing work on the project and figuring out the requirements on the fly. This also leads to a short-term mentality that leads to trouble downstream
4. Not involving testing from the beginning – Many organizations do not understand why testers are required when there is not a fully functional system ready to test. However, the testers can begin writing test cases while developers are coding. If both teams work side by side it leads to code that works the first time and does not require as many iterations to get it right.
5. Not delivering value early & iteratively – Delivering value translates to completing tasks that have tangible benefits and demonstrating them to the end users, stake-holders and team members often. The system\feature does not need be 100% complete before it can be shown to some of the key users.
6. Lack of experienced resources – Most organizations automatically think of developers and technical resources when they hear this statement. However, it is also important to have resources that can lead/manage the project, report progress and define business rules\requirements. This goes hand in glove with point 7 below.
7. Poor project management – Having someone to keep the team on track, manage risks and issues, manage budget and report progress to stake-holders and end users is key to any projects success.
8. Use of unfamiliar or untested technology – Being bleeding edge can be a double edged sword. On one hand using the latest technology could help gain market share\clients. However, it can also cause delays due to bugs in the technology or lack of support\documentation. Be sure to weigh these pros and cons when deciding on a technology.
9. The 'next best' thing is what we need – Some organizations are sold on the latest buzz word or application, either by media or sales and marketing teams that tell them what they want to hear. The key here is to understand that customizing a Commercial Off the Shelf (COT) application can take longer and cost more than building an application from scratch. Knowing this and making sure to do your homework is the key to avoiding this pitfall.
10. Roles & Responsibilities – One can avoid confusion and confrontation if every member of the team has clearly defined roles and associated responsibilities.
11. It's only an IT initiative – If IT runs the project without involving the business, the project will be perceived as something forced onto the business and it will be unsuccessful. In addition, IT is a cost center in most organizations so spending money without the buy in from the business ends poorly in a majority of cases.
12. The effort does not include internal IT – Many times an organization will hire an outside contractor to build an application without consulting with the IT department. On the face of it this sounds like an obvious mistake, but it happens all the time. Once the application is done it does not integrate with the rest of the IT infrastructure or back office applications. Not only that, IT is not motivated to help fix the issues because they were bypassed to begin with.