Software disasters are often people problems
MSNBC acknowledges the truth that software quality problems are seldom the fault of poor programming; they are most often caused by people who don’t actually know what they want.
[D]isasters are often blamed on bad software, but the cause is rarely bad programming. As systems grow more complicated, failures instead have far less technical explanations: bad management, communication or training.
W. Edwards Deming told us this decades ago. Management needs to acknowledge their mistakes and not shirk responsibility.
Big projects also can sour during development, particularly when not enough resources are allocated, the people who will have a stake in the new system don’t participate in planning and executives don’t care. All can lead to miscommunication with the developers.
