Factors that Affect Software Systems Development Project Outcomes: A Survey of Research

TL;DR

This paper surveys research from 1996-2006 on factors influencing software development project outcomes, introduces a new classification framework, and emphasizes empirical analyses in understanding these factors.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of existing research and proposes a novel classification framework for factors affecting project success.

Findings

Identifies key factors influencing project outcomes

Classifies factors into a new framework

Highlights empirical research trends

Abstract

Determining the factors that have an influence on software systems development and deployment project outcomes has been the focus of extensive and ongoing research for more than 30 years. We provide here a survey of the research literature that has addressed this topic in the period 1996-2006, with a particular focus on empirical analyses. On the basis of this survey we present a new classification framework that represents an abstracted and synthesized view of the types of factors that have been asserted as influencing project outcomes.