Empirical studies in software development projects: Field survey and OS/400 study

Abstract

Despite ongoing efforts to enhance the processes and techniques used in the development of software projects at all stages, software development projects continue to suffer problems in meeting user expectations, schedule, and budget. The purpose of this paper is to address the issues of management and control in large development projects and to present the results of our independent study on the development of the OS/400 RA development project, a very large software development project at IBM Corporation, Rochester, MN. The results of a field survey of software development professionals are summarized and compared with those of the OS/400 development. Furthermore, experience gained from the OS/360 development project is revisited and new insights are discussed. The paper concludes with lessons learned and project success factors.