A Developer’s Perspective: Why Your Software Project Is Failing
I begin almost every blog I write with this same caveat – writing software and building web applications is a difficult process. Regardless of the state of your application and how good of shape it is in, it is inevitable your team will run into problems and blockers during development. However, that does not mean […]
I begin almost every blog I write with this same caveat – writing software and building web applications is a difficult process. Regardless of the state of your application and how good of shape it is in, it is inevitable your team will run into problems and blockers during development. However, that does not mean all problems are inevitable. There are a few issues to monitor to ensure your team and software do not go off the rails.
Lack of Discovery
If there is an initial lack of discovery about the software you will be writing, then you will be dealing with some serious headaches moving forward. There is a delicate between making sure you are prepared versus being so pedantic you are unable to get the plane off the runway. If you have a clear idea of where your project needs to go and how you will get there, you will be in good shape.
Loss of Momentum
This next sign is not quantifiable, but regardless of your role you should be able to feel a sense of losing momentum. If your team is following Agile principles, then this issue should become apparent during your retrospective sessions. These sessions are when you recap the work that was completed and uncompleted during the previous sprint. A lack of progress or “wins” can be horrible for morale, and it can also lead to a muddying of priorities. If the focus of your team is putting out fires and resolving bugs, then you aren’t able to build any momentum towards completing key priorities. It’s important to have adequate planning and/or architecting to prevent this. Otherwise, you’ll pay the price later on.
Unrealistic Deadlines
Unrealistic Deadlines can be a result of the loss of momentum mentioned above or can present itself entirely separate. I have personally been on a project with unrealistic deadlines, and it did in fact go downhill. When deadlines are unrealistic, team members are going to rush their work and not be thorough. This leads to less than satisfactory work, which will result in all sorts of issues: faulty software, angry clients, and even more delays. Unrealistic deadlines do nothing but slow the project down even further. It’s important to make sure your team feels comfortable with the upcoming roadmap of work, or you will be in for a world of hurt moving forward.
My inspiration for writing this blog is to try to contextualize the scale of issues your team could be currently facing. At times it can feel like the number of issues your team is dealing with is overwhelming- a large backlog of technical debt, bugs that need fixing, dependencies that need upgrading, etc. It is just the inevitable nature of software engineering. If you and your team can keep the issues mentioned above to a minimum, you will keep your project moving forward in a productive, successful manner.
Will is a Full Stack Developer based in Washington, D.C. He earned his Masters of Education from the University of Virginia in 2018 and has brought his passion for mentoring and teaching to Exelaration since joining in November 2021. Will enjoys spending his free time outdoors either golfing, playing tennis, hiking, or just exploring D.C.