What do software practitioners really think about project success: an exploratory study

Understanding what software practitioners value and how they define project success has implications for both practitioner motivation and software development productivity. We conducted a survey to discover some of the components of project outcome (in terms of personal/professional aspects as well as the project as a whole) that practitioners consider important in defining project success. We also investigated some of those components that practitioners perceived were important contributors to success through their impact on the development process. Sixty-six practitioners participated in our study. They considered software projects to be successful if they provide them with intrinsic, internally motivating work in developing software systems that both meet customer/user needs and are easy to use.