Looking At The User Side Of Software Engineering For Project Success

Abstract

As a general definition, software engineering is “the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.” The importance of user-related factors has long been recognized by various researchers as important to the successful implementation of any commercially available system. This study attempts to test the importance of these factors as determinants of software engineering project success as measured by adherence to specified requirements, compliance with initial budget estimations, timeliness of agreed delivery, and overall user satisfaction with the product delivered. It has brought together some user-related variables (degree of user participation, user expertise, user/developer communication, user training, user influence, and user conflict) previously studied separately by different authors into a more cohesive model. Data regarding 178 system development projects using software engineering methodologies has been used to test proposed relationships between the independent variables and project success as defined in this study. The results confirm the importance of user participation, training, expertise, user/developer communication, and lack of user conflict for improving project success.