Application of Quantitative Research Methods in Identifying Software Project Factors
Basit Shahzad, Abass Md Said · 2012
Software projects have no choice than to succeed and the achievement of success requires a huge effort to ensure that a software process is mature enough to yield a product that is not only trustworthy but according to the requirements of the user. This paper is based on a survey that identifies the factors that when capitalized on may ensure that the project is completed successfully. The paper then, as a result provides a list of project success factors and provides the statistical evidence to support the result of the survey. I. INTRODUCTION In a recent study the most common software project success factors were also identified [1]. The process of identification spans over the literature survey that spans across the valuable literature available in the domain. It is important to note that there exist quite a few project factors that are critical enough to be considered. The emphasis and order given on their handling may strongly build or disturb the flow of software development and the ultimate product to be delivered. The identification of the project factors that determine the success or failure of the project is huge. A literature study was conducted in this regard to identify the most common project factors. Barry Boehm has discusses that there are four basic variables required in the estimation of a software project [3] , namely software size computation, effort estimation in person hour, cost and budgets calculation and recourse allocation. The author has also mentioned that the COSMIC-FFP as international standard in software estimation. The authors (Josian, Abraham) have mentioned that there are only three valuable factors in any successful projects to be considered, cost, effort and quality. The author has also proposed SMART techniques to make a project successful [2]. Based on the literature, a survey is prepared to help us identify the possible project success factors. The users may agree or disagree to already proposed success factors and they can propose the factors by themselves as well which are highly considered.