Australian software development: what software project management practices lead to success?

We surveyed a number of Australian software practitioners in order to understand what software development practices were used in their recent software projects. We were particularly interested to discover what project management practices are common in Australian software projects. The relationship between practices and software project outcomes enables us to investigate why some projects succeed and others fail. We found that nearly 20% of projects had no lifecycle methodology and 10% of our respondents did not understand what was meant by a software development lifecycle methodology. Many recognized software practices are not being applied consistently in the projects investigated. Fifty percent of projects began with unclear requirements. Risk assessment is not normally a part of the development process and the organizations are not learning from their mistakes as post mortem reviews are much more likely to be held for successful projects than they are for unsuccessful projects.

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