Why most tech projects still fail?

Drawing from our experience in the tech industry, we've identified some common pitfalls and bottlenecks our teams had to face throughout the years.

Naming just the problems isn't that valuable so for each issue we will share some techniques and practices that are battle-tested and have helped us to deliver some quite challenging projects. Let's dive in!

1. Scope Creep Creeps Creepily

   • What it's about: Just when you've nailed down what the project is about, a key stakeholder wants to add "just one more thing". Sometimes it might be a small feature, other times it might be a whole new product though.
   • Solution: Successful projects start with successful Statements of Work. Detailed Statements of Work that include "in" and "out-of-scope" sections can help you build a very strong and sincere relationship with your customers, manage their expectations and protect them from getting carried away from their passion and excitement. Arrange frequent catch-ups on a weekly basis with stakeholders to keep the project aligned and feasible.

2. The Never-Ending Planning Party

   • What it's about: Endless planning sessions can lead to a cycle of meetings that plan more meetings and producing useless artifacts that are never used. We've seen projects that spent months in planning, without much progress or that they confused planning with execution and forget that someone should make the connection between the two worlds, business and development.
   • Solution: Set clear, actionable milestones and deadlines to transition efficiently from planning to execution. Above all, we are here to prepare for the development phase and ensure its success. This is why we always start with a Discovery Phase to prepare meaningful documents and artifacts with user stories, flowcharts, and clickable prototypes to put business ideas into a frame and spot deadends early enough.

3. Budget, What Budget?

   • What it's about: Budgets often underestimate the actual deliverables costs, leading to overspending and financial strain.
   • Solution: Thorough upfront budgeting and splitting the whole project into phases and paid milestones. This helps us build trust with the customer and stay on top of the financial control throughout the whole project. Discovery and Design phases are the best way to get a clear picture of the project's scope and budget and then plan accordingly. This is why we should never start a project without running a proper Discovery Phase first.

4. Deadline? More Like a Guideline

   • What it's about: Deadlines often shift due to various unforeseen challenges, delaying project completion.
   • Solution: Realistic timelines and agile management techniques help us stay on track and adapt to changes. Be careful, Agile can bite you seriously if you do it wrong though. Working against target dates and frequent checkpoints is the best remedy here as long as these dates make sense for both business and development teams. Above all, we are here to deliver value to the business so both sides have to be aligned.

5. Technology Tantrums

   • What it's about: New technologies and experimentations can be unpredictable, causing delays and technical issues.
   • Solution: We minimize tech-related disruptions by using proven technologies and well-known tools such as Figma, ReactJS, TailwindCSS, Python Django, Docker, AWS cloud services etc. There is no room for experiments when there are clear goals to accomplish.

6. The Talent Tango

   • What it's about: Retaining skilled team members or even onboarding new ones can be a major hurdle in project completion.
   • Solution: Focus on hiring skilled, adaptable professionals and fostering a collaborative work environment where transparency is king. Well defined handbooks with best practices and clear Definition of Done principles can help hugely too. Above all, firms should help new team members accelerate and become useful members of the team fast while adapting to predefined tools and techniques. Randomness is the perfect recipe for chaos so this has to be eliminated by establishing a common language to communicate.

7. Communication Breakdown, It's Always the Same

   • What it's about: Poor communication between teams can lead to misunderstandings and errors. Business stakeholders and developers often speak different languages.
   • Solution: Emphasize clear, consistent communication channels, regular team meetings, and above all high transparency levels. Again, we can't stress enough how important it is to run a Discovery Phase before jumping into Development. This is the phase where we can align the business and development teams and we prepare the ground for a successful project. Weekly catchups also are vital to keep the project aligned and build trust with your customers.

8. UATs Feature Frenzy

   • What it's about: Stakeholders often demand additional features, complicating and overloading the project during UATs since this is the very first time they deal seriously with the new platform. This is too late and too dangerous.
   • Solution: Focus on the SoW deliverables, manage stakeholder expectations through clear communication and involve them in demonstrations and feedback sessions from the very first milestone. Every week a demo takes place where we present the progress of the project and we get feedback from the stakeholders. Such a feedback is priceless and helps teams to stay on track and deliver value to the business. Don't forget that you need to manage expectations and protect customers from their own excitement and anxiety which are quite high during UAT periods so sometimes open and honest discussions might help them realize that they are pushing the project over the cliff with their approach. It is your duty to remind this to them.

Conclusion

So what is the key for a successful project? The key is embracing the powerful partnership with our customers. Casting blame or treating them as the enemy is a fundamental misstep. Instead, our greatest successes are born from collaborative efforts, where we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them, navigating challenges together.

Our mission is clear: to assist ambitious customers in achieving their goals, transforming their vision into reality, and boosting their business. This synergy, where consultation meets client aspiration, is where true innovation and progress are sparked. Together, we're not just solving problems; we're setting new benchmarks in the tech world. Cheers 🤝