A new report from Constellation Research finds that a more flexible staffing approach can reduce the failure rate of software projects from 70-plus percent to less than 10 percent, while also driving marked improvements in cost efficiency (30 percent) and project satisfaction (3.6X). The report states that distributed work could change the nature of enterprise IT and software development in the 2020s as profoundly as cloud computing did over the past two decades.
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Failure rates are a big problem for #digitaltransformation. A new study by @ConstellationR shows #distributedteams and dynamic staffing can cut failure rates from 70% to 9%, based on analysis of @trygigster projects. #softwaredev
The Constellation study is based on detailed data supplied by Gigster from 190 digital projects and 1,161 sprints, conducted in 2018 and 2019 across Gigster’s client base. Highlighting a rapid evolution in the future of work, it points out that dynamic project staffing is spreading across the enterprise, with 72 percent of all such projects happening in large enterprise and IT professional services firms, up from 52 per cent just two years earlier.
The Gigster project analysis validates key benefits of distributed work and dynamic staffing, which is particularly relevant in a world where more and more tech workers are working remotely:
- Software projects managed with flexible staffing achieved a 91 percent success rate—a sharp contrast with the historical 70-plus percent failure rate of digital transformation projects (as reported by McKinsey in 2018).
- The digital projects studied were 30 percent more cost-efficient, due to optimized resource utilization.
- Employee and customer satisfaction were 3.6 times higher than traditionally managed projects, due to more diverse engagements, more employee input in staffing and better alignment with customer requirements.
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The report gives a practice Gigster calls “elastic staffing” credit for many of the benefits. Elastic staffing is an agile approach that uses an advanced platform to manage talent and teams across software development projects. This makes it possible to scale resources dynamically, which ensures the right skills are used at the right time. Unlike fixed staffing approaches that assign full-time roles and resources for the entire project, elastic staffing adjusts resource levels for each project milestone based on the actual workload and skill sets needed for that phase.
“This report shows that leading CIOs can adopt best practices from the gig economy to gain efficiency, reduce risk and improve job satisfaction,” said Dion Hinchcliffe, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation. “Our analysis found that IT organizations can use Gigster’s platform to be 30% more efficient, reduce risk by 60% and deliver 3.6x higher project satisfaction.”
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