97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know

Chapter 4. Make Project Sponsors Write Their Own Requirements

PMP. Miyoko Takeya

PROJECT FAILURE IS NOT JUST A PROBLEM with American corporations. According to a survey conducted several years ago by one of Japan's leading information technology magazines, more than 75% of the projects that are undertaken by Japanese corporations are considered a failure when measured against the metrics of quality, cost, and delivery.

In Japan, as in most other nations, the top reason for failure in each metric is almost always the same: poor requirements definition. The companies that are most at risk are those with poor business analysis capabilities. When specifically reporting on technology projects, such as software development, success is categorized, euphemistically, as "improbable." This result shows how difficult it is to find, identify, and define true requirements for a software project.

Since it is so hard to do, many project owners—such as customers, project sponsors, or company executives—expect the project manager to define and refine the requirements for the software on her own. They do not provide much in the way of guidance or a clear definition of what they need. Since it is a software project, and they may not understand software development themselves, they assume that they don't have to define what they expect.

The software project manager usually does not have the authority or ...