The Software Development Process (SDP in short) defines the way business ideas are put into software practice. It covers the entire process from requirements definition through to using the software in production. Many projects simply fail because of the fact that the business and software development processes are not aligned. It is a known fact [Standish98] that the most important factors that make or break a software development project are:
1. User Involvement,
2. Executive Support and
3. Clear Business Objectives.
These factors are more important than an experienced Project Manager. This is clearly evidence that stakeholders outside the IT department should be represented in the Software Development Process. To emphasize this even more, research has shown that 45% of all features implemented are never used at all. Therefore we can’t stress the simple point enough:
The software development process should resemble the business process.
Often this is not the case and the SDP has remained a mere IT asset or, even worse, a pure development instrument that has originated from team or developer preference, theory or vendor promotion. This can seriously hurt business as projects are more likely to fail with an inadequate process, and if they succeed they may be twice as expensive as needed.
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