I recently sat down for a podcast interview with Sanchit Thakur, CEO of Illuminz and host of the Illuminz Insights podcast, on the topic of large webs

5 Solutions to Ensure Your Large Website Project Succeeds

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2024-09-20 20:00:04

I recently sat down for a podcast interview with Sanchit Thakur, CEO of Illuminz and host of the Illuminz Insights podcast, on the topic of large website and software projects, the ways in which they’re always trying to fail, and what actions you can take to ensure they succeed.

The reported failure rate for such projects varies by source (1, 2, 3, 4) but it’s fair to say that more than 50 percent of such projects – by virtue of expanding timeframes and budgets, underdelivery, or failing to launch outright – can be said to be “missing expectations” on delivery. More often than not, these projects are sponsored, led, and staffed by sharp, well-intentioned people. So what’s going on?

What’s going on is that at a certain scale, large software projects – and I’d include any website or technology project that deploys code with a budget of $100,000 or higher in that definition – start to take on unique dynamics, many of them counterintuitive. It’s like different laws of physics take hold. For example, increasing the number of people working on a project as launch nears typically doesn’t speed it up, but instead slows it down. If you’ve been there, you know.

The good news is that most of the problems stem from a single cause, and the actions you can take to be part of a success story rather than a cautionary tale are very effective if consistently applied.