The Soft Track As The Hardest To Manage

The development of a software solution is less about technology and more about people. User involvement in XP and agile development, user-centered development, usage centered design all exemplify changing perspectives about software solution. There is an increasing realization that the most important success factor for any software development team is the people that comprise it. Human centered software development may be applicable along many different levels. Whether open source or proprietary, all efforts are are all focused along similar lines. Kevin highlights that the obstacles that we confront involve our inability to understand what users want, translate their wants into a functional and usable system, and manage our teams to deliver what we believe needs to be built.I disagree with him when he writes that licensing or technology may not play a role in these dysfunctions –not true – to a certain degree all these influence adoption. I deal routinely with people with varied cultural, linguistic affilations – I can see that the inherent features of software also influence successful adoption. In any software rollouts the people problems rank as among the most important factor to be tamed .I may add that if we decompose the risk perceptions around projects –half of them may revolve around people. Afterall in any transformation engagements, the soft track is always the hardest one to finish.