Delivering Successful Software-Development Projects

Overview

Software development projects are in high demand, with the global enterprise software market expected to reach $316.69 billion by 2025. Unfortunately, however, as investment grows, so does their risk of failure. 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail, and, in the US, the estimated cost of poor software quality was $2.41 trillion.

At FullStack Labs, we’ve identified three major categories where things can go wrong: scope-related, team-related, and engagement-related issues.

We’ve delivered more than 90 successful projects using technologies like React, React Native, Python, Node.js, Ember, Vue, Angular, Ruby on Rails, and custom frameworks. Using that experience, we’ve created a practical playbook to help business and product leaders navigate common pitfalls and build software that delivers real results.

Scope-Related

A recent Forbes article outlined common reasons why software projects fail: unclear requirements, poor understanding of business needs, mismatched priorities, and difficulty managing stakeholder expectations. Another post from Codebots identified similar issues, such as improper stakeholder expectation management, scope variations, inaccurate estimations. These challenges all boil down to two main issues: poor scope definition and management.

Businesses change, and project scopes expand. But mission creep can be a costly syndrome. If a project begins without safeguards in place to limit the scope’s expansion, the result is a project that’s never quite finished, and people who are never quite happy.

This may seem like a catch-22: “How can developers know what to develop unless the business tells them, but the business doesn’t know everything they want developed until they interact with the product?”

At FullStack Labs, our playbook not only acknowledges the cone of uncertainty but embraces it. The entire first phase in our projects is Design. We begin with a roadmap, perform competitive analysis, and develop user personas that reflect each stakeholder group. This ensures we account for competitive pressures and internal needs alike. Personas also make documenting requirements much easier by providing a clear frame of reference.

The next step in our process is technical discovery, where we choose the right tools and architecture for the project. Next comes technical discovery, where we choose the right tools and architecture for the project. This is where our nearshoring model begins to deliver value. By pairing US-based leads with vetted engineers in Latin America, we enjoy the various benefits of nearshore development teams in Latin America, such as real-time collaboration, cultural alignment, and lower costs.

With that foundation in place, we create:

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At the end of this phase is to develop an estimate and provide a development proposal that increases the estimate’s reliability going into the project. As the backlog changes, the project’s impact is discussed with the product owner, addressing the “inaccurate estimations” project failure reason.

So far, we have addressed the complaints and most of the scope-related issues identified earlier. Our projects are broken down into sprints, and demos occur frequently. Demos allow stakeholders to see what is being developed as it is being developed and provide feedback early. Product owner involvement in managing the backlog leads to understanding the trade-offs involved (avoiding expectation of over-customization) and addresses both change-management and prioritization project failure reasons.

Team-Related

Even with a strong plan, projects fail if the execution team isn’t set up to succeed. Forbes points to undefined roles, poor coordination, and having too many hands in the development pot as major risk factors. Codebots adds inadequate staffing, low productivity, and poor-quality code to the list.

Next comes the Develop phase, where we work with the client and the development team to build out key milestones and the release schedule, generating user stories using the personas developed previously. We typically use two-week sprints which are planned in coordination with the client and project team. During the sprint, developers complete user stories (code, test) and QA tests as well. Designers are available to developers if questions arise, and the project manager adds clarification from the customer as needed. Each user story is assigned to a single developer and they work on user stories one at a time, avoiding the “too many hands” issue. We conduct daily stand-ups where each person lists what they completed the prior day, what they are working on today, and any impediments/blockers they are experiencing. This avoids the “working in a silo” issue.

Developers are assigned to projects based on the estimate produced after the Design phase, avoiding failure due to “inadequate human resources.” At FullStack Labs, we use Toggl to track time against each user story in the backlog, ensuring that clients are charged only for the exact amount of time spent. We check reports every day to make sure we are highly productive on projects.

When it comes to product quality, everyone participates:

Designers ensure developers are positioned to build a successful product by following design guidelines meeting the minimum UI/UX Standard of Excellence and providing comprehensive documentation (e.g.: style guide, application diagram, user flows, asset library, prototype tour points).

Developers ensure changes delivered not only uphold the UI/UX Standards of Excellence but also that coding standards are followed: code is minimalistic, clean and obvious to other programmers, self-documenting, linted (checked for programmatic/stylistic errors), refactored, and each project has 95% integration and unit test coverage. In addition, developers minimize long methods, long classes, nested code, and duplication.

Reviewers are responsible for ensuring both sets of standards are adhered to and go a step further to even try breaking the application, blocking anything that does not work properly or meet expectations. Business analysts and project managers may perform reviews after QA to help catch any issues before the business gets the solution.

FullStack Labs’ minimum UI/UX Standard of Excellence includes (but is not limited to) the following:

• Have a strong visual hierarchy.
• Use consistent calls to action.
• Adapt to breakpoints.
• Load efficiently.
• Animate intentionally.
• Account for all states of information.
• Behave consistently and intuitively.
• Have optimized forms.
• Reduce user frustration.
• Use only high-quality assets.
• Be based on research and have a purpose.
• Be designed to move into development.
• Account for edge cases.
  

Every member of the team is held accountable to these standards and exercises a high degree of ownership. Developers don’t just throw user stories over the fence to QA and hope things turn out well — they work closely with QA. This level of ownership and accountability results in high-quality code and solutions.

This model is also a strong example of how to manage a nearshore software team successfully. Our developers in Latin America work side-by-side with US-based leads, sharing time zones, daily communication, and mutual accountability. It’s a system designed not just for delivery—but for consistent, high-quality outcomes.

Still weighing the pros and cons of different staffing strategies? Check out our guide to find the best fit for your business.

Engagement-Related

Projects can also fail when the wrong people are driving the process—or when the people who actually use the product aren’t included early enough. Waterfall projects used to suffer from “ivory tower syndrome,” where a few decision-makers spoke on behalf of the entire organization, and critical gaps were only discovered after launch.

We avoid that by building engagement into every stage of the project.

During each sprint, we include frequent check-ins and demos so stakeholders can see progress in real time and offer feedback while changes are still easy to make. Releasing small, functional features early and often means we can validate assumptions, adjust scope, and uncover new needs that weren’t visible during discovery.

We also use user flows and prototypes to bridge the gap between subject matter experts and technical teams. These assets make it easier to identify pain points, clarify expectations, and create solutions that actually reflect how people work—not just what’s documented in a spec.

This kind of ongoing collaboration is essential to Agile success— and a big part of why nearshoring works for Agile software delivery in 2025. When teams share time zones and communication styles, it’s easier to keep momentum and adjust quickly when something changes.

Questions to Ask Before Starting a Software Project

Whether you’re planning your first build or revisiting an existing app, it’s worth asking:

• What does success look like for this product, and how will we measure it?
• Who are the stakeholders, and how will their feedback be gathered and used?
• How flexible is our project if something changes?
• How often do we need updates, and how quickly do we need the project?
• Do we have the right team in place, or will we need outside help?

These are some of the most important questions to ask before starting a software development project. They help clarify priorities, set realistic expectations, and ensure your team and your technology partner are aligned from the start.

Conclusion

While there's no single reason why software projects fail, there are clear ways to help them succeed.

Having progressive discovery with a SCRUM Agile methodology and a high degree of both ownership and accountability contributes to successful software-development projects by avoiding the most common project failures. At FullStack Labs, software development is at the core of what we do and our passion for delivering high-quality solutions is demonstrated from the very start of a project on through to maintenance.