Software Project Failure: Examples And Reasons

Example-1: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Migration Failure at Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Software Project Failure:- A software project failure implies non-compliance of the delivered service with the specifications or agreed description about system’s expected  function  as well as service. Two examples of significant software project failure are-

Example-1:- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) migration failure at Hewlett-Packard (HP).

Example-2:- Failure of Billing system in Sydney Water Corporation.

Example-1:- ERP software consists of a system of combined application encompasses that support an enterprise in managing and distributing its resources effectively and efficiently, responding to its needs for information processing. The components of an ERP system are hardware, software, the users and the entrepreneurial procedures (Matende and Ogao 2013). In year 2004, HP declared that its sales had decreased by 5%, which was partially due to the failed attempt of the ERP system implementation. The company suffered a total damage of about $ 160 million, which was 5 times the total cost value of the system implementation. The effect of the system failure were visible after fully implementing the system in June 2004. Due to due to programming problems 20% of the orders could not pass through the old systems and the  company fell behind the execution of orders. As a result, the company lost its credibility (Efthymiou 2014).

Example-2:- Sydney Water Corporation (SWC), the largest water provider in Australia servicing million people has decided to implement an integrated Customer Information and Billing System (CIBS) for improving service and increasing efficiencies. The corporation has assigned the  project on CBIS to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) (Sudhakar 2016).   

Major reasons of project failure:-They are as follows. Example-1:-

• There were communication problems between the various groups. For instance, lack  of  proper communication maintenance between order-taking group at front end and logistics group atback-end.
• The data integration problem occurred due to ineffective product training and inappropriate product data
• The system testing has been conducted only on the  basis of standardized  orders and it was  not sufficiently tested for customized order (Dwivedi et al.2015).
• The information technology (IT) personnel were not provided sufficient time to build their skills for new system and forced to use the new

Example-2:- After formation of SWC’s information technology (IT) department in 2000, it reviewed the documents of CIBS architecture and advised PwC that the software failed 19 out of 20 requirements (Beal and Flynn 2014). The reason for this is are follows.

• Thereis communication breakdown due to conflict between SWC’s IT department and 

• Inexperience in Sydney Water’s project team as well as inexperienced in systems integration by PwC team. Moreover, the project team was working at too low a
• A lack of high-level representation from legal and corporate 

Description of phases of the waterfall model:- The phases can be described as follows. 

Requirements: The first phase mention the need, function and purpose of the design and study  the specifications the final product of the input and output.

System Design: Here, the design of the system is prepared from the specifications mentioned in requirements phase. System design define the all-inclusive system architecture as well as specify hardware and system requirements. The software code of the following stage is created here (Adenowo and Adenowo 2013).

Implementation: Here, the system is built and arranged into small program called units on the inputs provided by system design. The functionality of each unit is tested.

Example-2: Failure of Billing System in Sydney Water Corporation

Integration and Testing: All the tested units are combined here and the designed software is thoroughly tested to determine nay flaw or error so that during software installation, the client does not face any problem (Fitzgerald and Stol 2014).

Deployment of System: In this phase, after conducting the functional and non-functional testing, the product is released and placed into the customer environment / market.

Maintenance: This phase occurs after installation and here maintenance and support for the developed software are provided to the client. Here modification to the system and/or its components are done as per the client’s request 

In case it is found that in the design phase the requirements are wrong, then all activities of the design phase as well as its subsequent phases must be postponed until and unless  the  requirements are not correctly specified. 

To solve this problem, the following changes are to be made in the diagram (Kumar, Zadgaonkar and Shukla 2013) 

• The process must be defined clearly for receiving as well as analysing and inclusion of changed requests and make the customer aware of his/her entry point into the
• The target for each development phase must be set to a certain point beyond which the  changes are not
• The changed requests should be properly as well as clearly communicated to all stakeholders and accordingly after that the master project plan is   

Advantages of waterfall model:-They are as follows. 

• This model is simple to understand and easy to 

• Due to its rigidity, the waterfall model is managed easily as each phase consists of a review process along with fixed
• In this model, phases  do not overlap as each phase  are processed and completed one at a  time.
• Waterfall model works well for smaller projects where requirements are  very  well understood.

The model should be used particularly in short project with the following features. 

• The requirements must be fixed, unambiguous and clear which means that product definition  is fixed and technology is
• There is free availability of ample resources with required 

• There is nominal customer interaction during the product development of the 

• There is free availability of ample resources with required  

• If any failure occurs after product development then fixing such issues have high cost as it needs to be updated everywhere in the document. (McHugh,McCaffery and Casey 2014).

For example, the waterfall model can be implemented in online shopping system of jewellery items because in this case the functionality will have clear requirements. The online shopping systems in  general have very well-defined logic. The demonstration of the system to   the user is not required until the system with full working functionality is built.  

Advantages of incremental delivery:- According to Kumar and Bhatia (2014), the advantages are as follows.

• It produces working software quickly, which are easier to code and debug during smaller iteration.
• It provides flexibility and cost effectiveness regarding change in requirements and scope. 

• Here customer can respond to each built and the later stages are influenced by the feedback from early
• There is cash flow improvement due to delivery of some useful 

• Here the smaller sub-projects are easy controllable and manageable. Moreover, in case of any urgent work the project can be momentarily

Example where waterfall model is inappropriate:- The model is unsuitable  for  larger,  complex and object-oriented projects as this approach is extremely risky, costly  and  less  efficient.  

References:- 

Adenowo, A.A. and Adenowo, B.A., 2013. Software Engineering Methodologies: A Review of the Waterfall Model and Object-Oriented Approach. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 4(7), pp.427-434.

Beal, C. and Flynn, J., 2014. The 2014  review of smart metering and intelligent water networks  in Australia and New Zealand. Report prepared for WSAA by the Smart Water Research Centre, Griffith University.

Dwivedi, Y.K., Wastell, D., Laumer, S., Henriksen, H.Z., Myers, M.D., Bunker, D., Elbanna, A., Ravishankar, M.N. and Srivastava, S.C., 2015. Research on information systems failures and successes: Status update and future directions. Information Systems Frontiers, 17(1), pp.143-157.

Efthymiou, I., 2014. CASE STUDY ON FAILED IMPLEMENTATION OF ERP SYSTEMS. 

Fitzgerald, B. and Stol, K.J., 2014, June. Continuous software engineering and  beyond:  trends and challenges. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Rapid Continuous Software Engineering (pp. 1-9). ACM.

Major Reasons of Project Failure

Kumar, G. and Bhatia, P.K., 2014, February. Comparative analysis of software engineering models from traditional to modern methodologies. In Advanced Computing & Communication Technologies (ACCT), 2014 Fourth International Conference on (pp. 189-196). IEEE.

Matende, S. and Ogao, P., 2013. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation: a case for user participation. Procedia Technology, 9, pp.518-526.  

McHugh, M., McCaffery, F. and Casey, V., 2014. Adopting agile practices when developing software for use in the medical domain. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 26(5), pp.504-512.

Sudhakar, G., 2016. Critical Failure Factors (CFFs) of IT Projects. 

Kumar, N., Zadgaonkar, A.S. and Shukla, A., 2013. Evolving a new software development life cycle model SDLC-2013 with client satisfaction. International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering (IJSCE), 3(1), pp.2231-2307.

Software Project Failure:- A software project failure implies non-compliance of the delivered service with the specifications or agreed description about system’s expected  function  as well as service. Two examples of significant software project failure are-

Example-1:- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) migration failure at Hewlett-Packard (HP). 

Example-2:- Failure of Billing system in Sydney Water Corporation. 

Example-1:- ERP software consists of a system of combined application encompasses that support an enterprise in managing and distributing its resources effectively and efficiently, responding to its needs for information processing. The components of an ERP system are hardware, software, the users and the entrepreneurial procedures (Matende and Ogao 2013). In year 2004, HP declared that its sales had decreased by 5%, which was partially due to the failed attempt of the ERP system implementation. The company suffered a total damage of about $ 160 million, which was 5 times the total cost value of the system implementation. The effect of the system failure were visible after fully implementing the system in June 2004. Due to due to programming problems 20% of the orders could not pass through the old systems and the  company fell behind the execution of orders. As a result, the company lost its credibility (Efthymiou 2014).

Example-2:- Sydney Water Corporation (SWC), the largest water provider in Australia servicing million people has decided to implement an integrated Customer Information and Billing System (CIBS) for improving service and increasing efficiencies. The corporation has assigned the  project on CBIS to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) (Sudhakar 2016).  

Major reasons of project failure:-They are as follows. Example-1:-

• There were communication problems between the various groups. For instance, lack  of  proper communication maintenance between order-taking group at front end and logistics group atback-end.
• The data integration problem occurred due to ineffective product training and inappropriate product data
• The system testing has been conducted only on the  basis of standardized  orders and it was  not sufficiently tested for customized order (Dwivedi et al.2015).
• The information technology (IT) personnel were not provided sufficient time to build their skills for new system and forced to use the new

Example-2:- After formation of SWC’s information technology (IT) department in 2000, it reviewed the documents of CIBS architecture and advised PwC that the software failed 19 out of 20 requirements (Beal and Flynn 2014). The reason for this is are follows.

• Thereis communication breakdown due to conflict between SWC’s IT department and  

• Inexperience in Sydney Water’s project team as well as inexperienced in systems integration by PwC team. Moreover, the project team was working at too low a
• A lack of high-level representation from legal and corporate 

Description of Phases of the Waterfall Model

Description of phases of the waterfall model:- The phases can be described as follows.  

Requirements: The first phase mention the need, function and purpose of the design and study  the specifications the final product of the input and output.

System Design: Here, the design of the system is prepared from the specifications mentioned in requirements phase. System design define the all-inclusive system architecture as well as specify hardware and system requirements. The software code of the following stage is created here (Adenowo and Adenowo 2013).

Implementation: Here, the system is built and arranged into small program called units on the inputs provided by system design. The functionality of each unit is tested.

Integration and Testing: All the tested units are combined here and the designed software is thoroughly tested to determine nay flaw or error so that during software installation, the client does not face any problem (Fitzgerald and Stol 2014).

Deployment of System: In this phase, after conducting the functional and non-functional testing, the product is released and placed into the customer environment / market.

Maintenance: This phase occurs after installation and here maintenance and support for the developed software are provided to the client. Here modification to the system and/or its components are done as per the client’s request  

In case it is found that in the design phase the requirements are wrong, then all activities of the design phase as well as its subsequent phases must be postponed until and unless  the  requirements are not correctly specified.  

To solve this problem, the following changes are to be made in the diagram (Kumar, Zadgaonkar and Shukla 2013) 

• The process must be defined clearly for receiving as well as analysing and inclusion of changed requests and make the customer aware of his/her entry point into the
• The target for each development phase must be set to a certain point beyond which the  changes are not
• The changed requests should be properly as well as clearly communicated to all stakeholders and accordingly after that the master project plan is  

Advantages of waterfall model:-They are as follows. 

• This model is simple to understand and easy to 

• Due to its rigidity, the waterfall model is managed easily as each phase consists of a review process along with fixed
• In this model, phases  do not overlap as each phase  are processed and completed one at a  time.
• Waterfall model works well for smaller projects where requirements are  very  well understood.

The model should be used particularly in short project with the following features. 

• The requirements must be fixed, unambiguous and clear which means that product definition  is fixed and technology is
• There is free availability of ample resources with required 

• There is nominal customer interaction during the product development of the 

• There is free availability of ample resources with required   

• If any failure occurs after product development then fixing such issues have high cost as it needs to be updated everywhere in the document. (McHugh,McCaffery and Casey 2014).

For example, the waterfall model can be implemented in online shopping system of jewellery items because in this case the functionality will have clear requirements. The online shopping systems in  general have very well-defined logic. The demonstration of the system to   the user is not required until the system with full working functionality is built. 

Advantages of incremental delivery:- According to Kumar and Bhatia (2014), the advantages are as follows.

• It produces working software quickly, which are easier to code and debug during smaller iteration.
• It provides flexibility and cost effectiveness regarding change in requirements and scope. 

• Here customer can respond to each built and the later stages are influenced by the feedback from early
• There is cash flow improvement due to delivery of some useful 

• Here the smaller sub-projects are easy controllable and manageable. Moreover, in case of any urgent work the project can be momentarily

Example where waterfall model is inappropriate:- The model is unsuitable  for  larger,  complex and object-oriented projects as this approach is extremely risky, costly  and  less  efficient.  

References:- 

Adenowo, A.A. and Adenowo, B.A., 2013. Software Engineering Methodologies: A Review of the Waterfall Model and Object-Oriented Approach. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 4(7), pp.427-434.

Beal, C. and Flynn, J., 2014. The 2014  review of smart metering and intelligent water networks  in Australia and New Zealand. Report prepared for WSAA by the Smart Water Research Centre, Griffith University.

Dwivedi, Y.K., Wastell, D., Laumer, S., Henriksen, H.Z., Myers, M.D., Bunker, D., Elbanna, A., Ravishankar, M.N. and Srivastava, S.C., 2015. Research on information systems failures and successes: Status update and future directions. Information Systems Frontiers, 17(1), pp.143-157.

Efthymiou, I., 2014. CASE STUDY ON FAILED IMPLEMENTATION OF ERP SYSTEMS. 

Fitzgerald, B. and Stol, K.J., 2014, June. Continuous software engineering and  beyond:  trends and challenges. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Rapid Continuous Software Engineering (pp. 1-9). ACM.

Kumar, G. and Bhatia, P.K., 2014, February. Comparative analysis of software engineering models from traditional to modern methodologies. In Advanced Computing & Communication Technologies (ACCT), 2014 Fourth International Conference on (pp. 189-196). IEEE.

Matende, S. and Ogao, P., 2013. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation: a case for user participation. Procedia Technology, 9, pp.518-526.  

McHugh, M., McCaffery, F. and Casey, V., 2014. Adopting agile practices when developing software for use in the medical domain. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 26(5), pp.504-512.

Sudhakar, G., 2016. Critical Failure Factors (CFFs) of IT Projects. 

Kumar, N., Zadgaonkar, A.S. and Shukla, A., 2013. Evolving a new software development life cycle model SDLC-2013 with client satisfaction. International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering (IJSCE), 3(1), pp.2231-2307.