What makes for a successful software development project? I was mulling over a number of projects I had been involved with in the past, some very successful, some not so, and thinking about the key differences between the two. There are any number of aspects that can be considered – the quality of project management, clearness of requirements, thoroughness of the analysis, quality of execution and technical leadership to name but a few. Here I am going to focus on two key technical aspects, not being a career project manager, and explain why they are both important and also both frequently neglected.
From my experience there are two main aspects to a technically successful software development project, the Software Architecture, and the Software Engineering Process (I am taking it as read that your teams have the basic capabilities to develop software using your chosen technical platform, which in my case is Java).