The Art of Agile Development

Understanding Success

The traditional idea of success is delivery on time, on budget, and according to specification. [Standish] provides some classic definitions:

Important

Despite their popularity, there’s something wrong with these definitions.

Successful

“Completed on time, on budget, with all features and functions as originally specified.”

Challenged

“Completed and operational but over budget, over the time estimate, [with] fewer features and functions than originally specified.”

Impaired

“Cancelled at some point during the development cycle.”

Despite their popularity, there’s something wrong with these definitions. A project can be successful even if it never makes a dime. It can be challenged even if it delivers millions of dollars in revenue.

CIO Magazine commented on this oddity:

Projects that were found to meet all of the traditional criteria for success—time, budget and specifications—may still be failures in the end because they fail to appeal to the intended users or because they ultimately fail to add much value to the business.

... Similarly, projects considered failures according to traditional IT metrics may wind up being successes because despite cost, time or specification problems, the system is loved by its target audience or provides unexpected value. For example, at a financial services company, a new system... was six months late and cost more than twice the original estimate (final cost was $5.7 million). But the project ultimately created a more adaptive organization ...