Critical Success Factors in Software Project Development (Article Sample)

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The article discusses critical success factors that facilitate effective software project development. The authors argue that the cycle of software development has changed at least four generations of programming languages. Researchers have held innumerable meetings to devise strategies of improving the success of implementing software projects; however, they still haven't enhanced their ability to move from idea to product. The article denotes that though executives and researchers have taken a step to formulate a plan for implementing software products effectively, there is no magic to managing software projects effectively; nevertheless, problems linked to software development make it inimitable. Software-based systems are exceptionally complex; developers are complex and intelligent individuals, which creates a volatile mixture of management issues. The authors propose five essential factors to manage successful projects; "start on the right foot, maintain momentum, track progress, make smart decisions, and institutionalize post-mortem analyses."
The course has discussed virtually every aspect of project management. In his book, "project management, the managerial process," Larson et al. (2018) commences with an analysis of modern project management to assist the reader in understanding why project management is crucial in the current environment. The authors then take the reader across a series of topics, including developing a project plan, scheduling resources, and costs, estimating the project cost, managing project risks, project selection, defining a project, outsourcing, and managing international projects.
According to Reel (1999), software projects' first critical success factor is starting on the right foot. The author argues that just as it is challenging to grow strong plants on weak soil, it's dreadful to complete a project set up improperly. The article highlights various signs of project failure, including ill-defined project scope, the project manager failing to understand the user requirement, unrealistic deadlines, change in business needs, loss of funding, change in technology, and insufficient resources. The author suggests that at the start of the project, the manager should set realistic expectations and objectives, build the right team, provide the team with the necessary resources. Chapter 4 discusses defining the project, and Larson et al. (2018) describes that the first step should focus on defining the project scope as it sets the stage for developing a project plan. The author supports that poor development of the project scope is the most frequently mentioned barrier to successful project implementation. The project scope should include the project objectives, deliverables, milestones, technical requirements, limits and exclusions, and a customer review. Further techniques such as the work breakdown structure will improve planning and control of the project.
Building the right team entails obtaining the right people, and prior to building the team, the project manager should ensure that there are enough resources to get the job done; otherwise, the effort is doomed. Getting the right team doesn't necessarily mean selecting individuals with topmost skills, rather balancing between too many stars and too low stars. Building the right team is only the first step to building an effective, motivated, and project-driven team. The article suggests that after building a strong team, the project manager should provide an environment that encourages productivity and reduce distractions.
Larson et al. (2018) suggests that a project manager can build a high-performance project team by recruiting project members, holding project meetings, developing team norms, managing the project rewards systems, and creating a shared vision. According to the authors providing rewards to team members, or the team in general, is a method of encouraging productivity. Larson et al. (2018) explains that rewards don't necessarily have to be tangible; a reward could simply be recognition and appreciation of a team member's efforts in general.
Momentum in a project is achieved after the project manager has built a strong team. The subsequent task is maintaining the momentum, which is dreadfully challenging as it's unpredictable and occasionally changes during a development effort. The article suggests that maintaining or rebuilding the team's momentum should focus on attrition, quality, and management. The project should establish base procedures describing expectations before it becomes even more challenging to fix the issues. Man