The Requirements Excuse

Studies into the failure of IT projects almost always make reference to poor requirements as a leading source of failure. Requirements are of course a vital part of any project. Without knowing what you’re building how can you build something of value? Although I agree that getting the requirements right is a central pillar of project success, I do have a problem in pinning project failure on poor requirements. As those who have run IT projects know, establishing requirements can be a tricky ...
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Mind the Gap

The translation of an organizational need into a technical solution is a technology project’s core. That translation requires detailed knowledge of the organization’s operation environment (and their desired future state) to be married up with the technical skills from which the solution will be created. The size of the gap between those two pools of knowledge is a common source of troubled projects. One project I recently observed had allowed a six step gap to form between the intended users...
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