Page 123 - Navy Journal 219
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Software Project ...

            In light of the above discussion, an attempt has been made to suggest measures
            to mitigate the BN software development pitfalls. To do so, a well-established
            procedure software ‘Risk Management’stated by Barry Boehm is analyzed and
            correlated with the software  development life cycle domain of BN. Boehm
            identified ten generalized risk factors and suggested six steps of risk
            management. Boehm’s theory will be analyzed  briefly and link will be
            established with BN software development projects to come into a suggestive
            solution.

            Software Project Runway/ Failures
                 There are number of reported incidences where the software projects have
            gone awry over the past four decades (Charette, 2005). In fact, a ‘Hall of Shame’
            (figure 1) is regularly updated by the practitioners and researchers in the field of
            software development.  The list is increased day by day with the massive
            introduction  of software  project  development in all  facets  of human
            development, because software is everywhere.  When software fails, it
            jeopardizes an organization’s prospect along with other security issues.  To
            understand the inherent factors of software project failures, it can be compared
            with airplane crushes. Just like the honest intention of pilot not being crashed,
            software developers nor the client organization intend that the software runway
            or fails. Airplane crash investigators looks after many other factors like weather,
            maintenance records, pilot’s physical and mental state and training, and cultural
            factor inside the plane. Similarly, on the occasion or probability of software
            project failure we need to look at the organizational environment, technical
            management, project management, and organizational culture to get the roots of
            software failures. It is observed that most of the time the stake holders or actors
            involved in the projects is not fully aware of the intention to develop the software
            let alone the clear understanding of the development phases. There is a bit of
            uncontrollable urge observed in different offices inside BN to be automated or to
            use the latest technology in hopes of gaining a competitive edge over others.
            Besides, due to the dynamism in software development process, requirements of
            client changes while the development is in progress. If the changes are frequent
            and affect the preliminary ideas and design then significant project uncertainty is
            produced (Nurmuliani, Zowaghi, & Fowell, 2004). Software projects for
            sophisticated clients like BN also shows large degree of uncertainty for
            requirements. Research shows that 45% of all the causes of project runway are
            related to organizational issues (Y.H & J., 2004). The most alarming point is that
            most of the time project failure is identified long after the software itself of the




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