Success, But At What Price?

A friend asked me recently, “do all these good organisational and development practices really make that much of a difference to the successful outcome of a project?”. We all know following good practices improves the lives of those involved, but do they really help to achieve a business success? After all, some extremely-late, over-budget, bloated, misguided and poor-quality software development projects do go on to make the business a lot of money, therefore can be deemed to be successful. But at what price? Projects like this often leave a path of destruction behind them. The stress, political battles, low morale, fear, late nights, strained relationships, blood, sweat and tears of the people who worked hard under pressure, following poor organisational and development practices. That’s the difference. Good practices not only help to achieve a successful business outcome, they also help to build a good working environment. There is a human factor to the successful outcome of a project. Let’s not forget that.