Study: 25 Percent of Web Projects Over Budget

Collaborative approach would help, says developer New Bamboo.

By Leo King
Thu, May 22, 2008

Computerworld UK — A quarter of Web projects fail to meet their budgets, and 31 percent are delivered late, according to a new study.

The main factors affecting projects are frequently changing requirements, too many stakeholders having a say in the matter, and not enough budget or time being allocated, the report said.

Some 21 percent of projects fail to meet stakeholder requirements, according to a survey of 100 IT managers and directors, conducted by Ruby on Rails software developer New Bamboo.

About half of Web projects are run by in-house development teams, and 28 percent are outsourced to third parties, the survey found.

Damien Tanner, co-founder of New Bamboo, said it was critical businesses did not accept failings, even in the development processes for smaller projects.

"The end goal is to deliver business value—yet rigid requirements make it difficult to react to the changes that inevitably occur as knowledge and environments evolve," he said. "Requirements that have been omitted are generally picked up late in the process—by which time they are awkward and costly to implement."

What's more, failings were set to become more prominent as businesses attempted to develop complex projects such as social networking, e-commerce and Web 2.0 sites, the survey concluded.

For more on identifying projects in trouble, see How to Spot a Failing Project.

It said the solution was to take a collaborative approach to Web project development. The approach would involve regular meetings with all stakeholders where working software is tested and a enough quality assurance is carried out.

"By using a combination of Ruby on Rails and Agile processes, projects can be successfully delivered on time and within budget," Tanner said. "The key is in setting high expectations for success and achieving them through a repeatable, flexible and controllable process."

For an intro to Agile, see Getting Clueful: 7 Things CIOs Should Know About Agile Development.

Ruby on Rails is a framework designed to help the fast deployment of Web applications, based on the Ruby programming language.

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