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Discussion on: Why Tech Projects Fail: Management, Planning, Process

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mortoray profile image
edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

I really think that programmer's abilities can be a reason why a project fails. There is a shortage of good programmers, and a lot of places may end up hiring people that just aren't up to the task. If your talent pool is simply not strong enough, no amount of process, planning and management can rescue it.

It obviously depends on the project what you need. There are many projects that need certain skill levels, and if you don't have them, you just won't get a satisfactory result.

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robdwaller profile image
Rob Waller

I agree that finding good developers can be hard and bad developers can really screw things up on occasions. As a manager I have been burnt once or twice by the hiring process.

I would make a few points though. A good or experienced programmer is someone who understands the importance of planning and process. As such they value concepts such as sprint planning, testing and documentation. So for me process, planning and management go hand in hand with good programmers.

In the article I briefly touched on the concept that management, planning and process are relative to the team you have. If you have a weak team you're likely going to spend a lot more time on planning and process. Your team will need to do a lot more research and quality assurance than a stronger team might.

Planning and process are tools which allow you to manage work relative to the capability of your team. And given we live in a world where nothing is perfect and no development team is perfect we need to handle this in some way. For me planning and process are the way we handle the less than perfect resources we may have to hand to complete a particular project.