Why Your Development Projects Fail

The disastrous consequences of planning for success

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” — Murphy’s Law

As developers, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that everything we develop will have its intended effect.

We like to believe that what we make will be a success, so we plan for a project with the high expectations that it’ll yield a positive outcome and high return on investment. So, we allocate a lot of time and resources to a project, seeing it all the way through to completion without batting an eye. Then, once it’s done, we deploy it happily — glad that it’s packaged and finished.

Woohoo! Right?

The Naivety of Optimistic Planning

Dare I say, planning only for success is extremely naive. Optimism is good, but blind optimism is a recipe for disaster. And planning with the assumption of success is a clear-cut example of the kind of blind optimism that can have disastrous consequences. Unfortunately, this problem plagues the culture of many tech companies both large and small.

You might be familiar with the consequences that come with blind optimism. For example, you may have spent days, weeks, or even months…