Software projects often fail. It's just a fact that many projects come in over budget, past the deadline, full of bugs and hard to use interfaces. Sometimes they don't even make it that far and are completely canceled, scrapped, and discarded.
Why? That is going wrong?
The answer is: disorganization. Failure to adequately communicate. Confusion on which features are needed, on what needs to be done. Time is wasted, unnecessary code created. Delivery dates are changed, then changed again, and yet again. That, or else the software is delivered on time but full of holes.
Project teams need a clear plan to follow, a roadmap with checkpoints along the way. Descriptions of exactly what each module of the software needs to do, and how the modules work together.
According to the article "Why Software Fails", billions of dollars are wasted each year because of bad software. Reasons for failure include: unrealistic goals, inaccurate estimates, badly defined requirements, poor reporting of the project's status, poor communication, and stakeholder politics, among others.
People needs to get serious about this area, stop messing around and buckle down and get to business. Use common sense, communicate, stick to the schedule. Then software engineering will become worthy of the "engineering" part of the phrase.
