Schedule Slippage, its prevention factors & their adherence (Assessment of the Project Management Best Practices which contribute in successful completion of projects in the Software Industry of Pakistan)

When a project fails to meet its schedule commitments, this is known as slippage. It is well known that software projects typically slip on their schedules. Hence an important aspect of the project manager´s role is to deal effectively with slippage. Although there are different ´best practices´ available in prior literature and organizations in local software industry of Pakistan may also be using those. But there is no study, which actually relates these practices with the schedule slippage of the project. This study is based on main factors/practices in all phases of software development that cause delays in project schedule if proper attention is not paid. In this paper we shall observe software development projects in different software organizations to see the schedule slippage, major factors of the slippage and the project management practices followed in those projects. In addition to this we shall evaluate the software projects of local industry against those factors and the practices. It shall give a list of key delay causes that might exist in each phase of project development life cycle about which a software project manager must be aware of in order to effectively and efficiently complete and deliver a project on time and within budget. This study indicates that the factors, if given proper attention can help in reducing the schedule delays. The results shall also provide the current situation of the schedule delay; our industry is facing which could cause the dissatisfaction of our customers.