"Oh, the wizards burned through another $300,000 last month. Well, who knows what those wizards do. Tell them to get the payroll system ready by next month, OK?"
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/jamesinclair/IMG_6378.j...
A huge hole in the middle of Boston's Downtown Crossing shopping district.
The historic Filene's department store building was torn out, to be replaced with a 38 story tower. Funding evaporated. The project stalled in November of 2008.
I don't have much faith in most Enterprisey teams to ship good software even if they have a thorough concrete spec. We love to blame changing / incomplete specs, but I'd imagine that most dysfunctional teams would manage to bone up a perfect spec anyway.
The software entity is constantly subject to pressures for
change. Of course, so are buildings, cars, computers. But
manufactured things are infrequently changed after
manufacture; they are superseded by later models, or
essential changes are incorporated into
copies of the same basic design. Callbacks
of automobiles are ready quite infrequent; field changes of
computers somewhat less so. Both are much less frequent than
modifications to fielded software.
In part, this is so because the software of a system
embodies its function, and the function is the part that
most feels the pressures of change. In part it is because
software can be changed more easily--it is pure thought-
stuff, infinitely malleable.
I sure hope nobody deletes files after stopping work on a project. What a waste. Storage is so incredibly cheap...