AI technology has been one of the most disruptive technological changes of the past couple of years. One forecast reports that the market for AI will be worth over $594 billion by 2032.
The growing number of people using AI services such as ChatGPT is a testament to how influential AI has become. Last month, it was reported that over 1.5 billion people visit the ChatGPT website every month.
With the growing demand for AI, it would seem that this is the perfect time to create an AI application. Unfortunately, AI startups have a high failure rate. Keep reading to learn more.
Why Do AI Startups Have Such High Failure Rates?
Developing software solutions is complex and one of the many reasons why software projects fail. Despite great advances in development tools and methodologies over the past decade, software development projects continue to fail at an alarmingly high rate. In 2011, a study found 75% of IT executives believed their software projects were destined to fail. AI software projects didn’t fare better than the general index of software startups.
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Even after nearly a decade, the significance of this issue endures. In our modern, digitally-driven society, nearly every business depends on AI software to manage critical aspects of its operations. When software development initiatives fail, the consequences can be catastrophic, leading to time and financial resources wasted, missed prospects, and harm to a company’s image. These are just a few compelling arguments for the essential need to locate reliable custom software development services when starting a new project.
With so much at stake, it is critical that companies understand why software development projects fail and what can be done to prevent it. Here we will explore the major reasons software projects fail and proven solutions to address these pitfalls:
Top Reasons Software Development Projects Fail
1. Unclear Requirements
Gathering clear, complete and correct requirements is the crucial first step in any software project. If requirements are fuzzy, incomplete or just plain wrong, the project will veer off course from the very beginning.
Unfortunately, many companies do a poor job of defining requirements. They may be too focused on the desired end result to nitpick the details upfront. Or they may assume the developers intrinsically understand their needs without spelling things out.
Requirements gathering requires hard work and attention to subtle details from both the customers and the development team. Customers must take the time to thoroughly analyze their business needs and document exact requirements for the solution they want built. Ambiguity and assumptions are recipes for failure.
2. Unrealistic Expectations
AI has led to a lot of improvements in software development. For example, developers can create low-code framework solutions. Sadly, these breakthroughs have led some people to have unrealistic expectations.
Customers often have unrealistic expectations around budget, timeline and features when requesting new software. In their enthusiasm, they demand the finished product yesterday, for peanuts, with endless bells and whistles. This can lead to overbudget custom software projects failing.
Some development firms will promise the moon to land the business, even if the expectations are impossible. The project moves forward on a foundation of false promises, dooming it from day one.
Customers and developers must work together to set realistic expectations upfront for budget, timeline, features, quality and other parameters. If expectations are severely misaligned with reality, the project will undoubtedly fail regardless of how well it is executed.
3. Poor Communication
When communication breaks down both internally between developer teams and externally with the customer, software projects get derailed fast.
Developers may fail to properly communicate and collaborate across internal teams like design, engineering and QA. Customer requests get lost in translation. Technical issues aren’t surfaced early enough for the project managers involved.
Externally, lack of open communication with the customer leads to misunderstandings and disconnects about what is truly required and expected.
Clear, constant communication on both fronts is essential. Internally, developers must overcommunicate details and progress across the organization to ensure all teams are on the same page. Externally, customers must ask lots of questions and stay looped in to provide clarification and feedback.
4. Lack of User Involvement
A common mistake is developing software without any input from its actual end users. The customer assumes certain features and functionality will meet user needs. But users themselves are never asked what they really want. It is helpful to have AI-driven personalization and other features, but the customers need to have some buy-in.
This approach is backward because the user experience ultimately determines if the software succeeds or fails. Users reject software that does not address their wants and needs, no matter how technically sound it is under the hood.
User experience testing and feedback must be built into the development process from the very beginning and throughout. Early and frequent involvement from real end users will ensure the product is shaped by those who will actually use it.
5. Resistance to Change
Software requirements inevitably change over the course of a project. Customers realize they need new features or certain proposed functionality will not work. Technical challenges arise that require design changes.
Companies wedded to traditional waterfall development approaches resist these changes, sticking rigidly to original requirements even when it no longer serves the project. This inflexibility ultimately causes failure.
Development teams must be open to change and stay nimble to adjust as needs evolve. Agile frameworks like Scrum embrace changing requirements as part of the process to build software that delights users.
6. Lack of Testing
Cutting corners on quality assurance and software testing is surefire path to failure. When testing is truncated or eliminated, bugs and defects remain undetected. These flaws cripple the software or cause it to fail altogether once deployed.
Ideally, testing is built into the entire development lifecycle. Unit tests validate individual parts as they are built. Integration and system tests confirm the pieces work together properly. And user acceptance testing allows real users to test drive the finished product.
With continuous testing at each stage, defects can be caught early and corrected before they create big problems down the road. This prevents delivering software that is essentially defective out of the gate.
7. Choosing the Wrong Development Partner
Even experienced companies with a clear vision can see projects derailed by choosing the wrong external development partner, which might have poor software developers. Selecting a partner with limited expertise in the problem domain or the required technology can doom projects from the start.
Conducting thorough due diligence to pick the right developer with demonstrated experience building similar solutions is critical. Checking references to validate their track record is wise. The right partner provides expertise and guidance to steer projects safely to success.
Now that we have explored the major causes of software project failure, let’s examine proven solutions to address these risks and get development efforts back on track.
8. Invest Time in Requirements Gathering
Make gathering clear, complete and correct requirements the top priority from day one. Take the time upfront to thoroughly analyze your organizational needs and document them to a granular level of detail.
Creating artifacts like user stories to detail required functionality from an end user perspective is extremely helpful. Diagramming workflows and wireframes will also aid in conveying specific functional needs to the development team.
Requirements should be reviewed and signed-off by all stakeholder groups within the organization to ensure nothing is missed. Expect this vital process to take serious time and effort. It is time well invested to avoid problems down the road.
9. Set Realistic Expectations
Have frank discussions early about budget, timeline, features, quality and other project parameters. Challenge assumptions and set expectations based on project reality, not wishful thinking.
Agree on project success criteria upfront tied to concrete metrics like budget, timeline, features delivered and quality benchmarks. Revisit these often as the project progresses to ensure expectations align with reality.
10. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Overcommunicate, both internally and externally, at every stage of the project. Institute regularly recurring status meetings for internal teams and with the client. Favor live communication over email wherever possible to improve understanding.
Record meetings and document decisions to avoid misaligned memories of conversations. Repeat back what you heard during meetings to ensure mutual understanding. Pick up the phone when emails just won’t cut it.
11. Involve Users Early and Often
Identify end users early on and continually engage them to shape the product roadmap, provide input on UI/UX design, and give feedback on prototypes and iterations.
Run frequent usability studies throughout development to gather real user perspectives. Nothing replaces hands-on user experience testing when building highly usable software.
12. Embrace Change
Build change management into the development methodology. Scrum and other Agile methods are designed to embrace evolving requirements over the course of a project.
Scope out projects in manageable chunks to isolate changes. Refactor code to easily modify modules without introducing new bugs. Automate testing to quickly validate changes don’t break existing functionality.
13. Make Testing Pervasive
Focus on “test early, test often.” Implement test-driven development with unit testing from the very start. Conduct integration, performance and security testing in parallel with feature development.
Make user acceptance testing the central focus, not an afterthought. Testing is not something to cut corners on or eliminate when things go sideways. It should persist throughout the development lifecycle.
14. Choose the Right Development Partner
Conduct in-depth due diligence to pick an external development partner with specific experience building similar solutions. Ask tough questions and challenge their responses.
Check multiple references to validate past performance. Review examples of their work. Ensure they have the technical expertise and project management practices to deliver predictable, successful outcomes.
The Right Mindset for Software Project Success
Beyond these specific solutions, organizations must embrace a philosophy of collaboration to successfully develop software. Bring users into the process as partners, not just end customers. Seek constant feedback and course-correct in real-time based on it.
Empower development teams to raise risks early so they can be addressed proactively. Reward transparency and ask hard questions to unearth issues before they derail projects. Conduct post-mortems on failures to reveal process improvements for the future.
By combining smart planning, open communication, embracing change, rigorous testing, choosing the right partners and fostering a collaborative spirit, companies can overcome the common pitfalls to successfully develop software that exceeds expectations.