Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project include and are not limited to: cost reduction, increased return on investment (ROI), reduced time to market, increased speed and efficiency, increased security, and increased interoperability. These drivers primarily focus on streamlining and reducing cost to make a company more profitable with less overhead.

According to Answers.com cost reduction is defined as reducing costs to improve profitability, and may be implemented when a company is having financial problems or prevent problems.

ROI is defined as the amount of value received relative to the amount of money invested according to PayperclickList.com. 

With the ever increasing demands on businesses to compete in today’s market, companies are constantly striving to reduce the time it takes for a concept to become a product and be sold within the global marketplace.

In business, some people say time is money, so if a project can reduce the time a business process takes it in fact saves the company which is always good for the bottom line.

The Social Security Administration states that data security is the protection of data from accidental or intentional but unauthorized modification, destruction.

Interoperability is the capability of a system or subsystem to interact with other systems or subsystems.

In my personal opinion, these drivers would not really differ for a profit-based organization, compared to a non-profit organization. Both corporate entities strive to reduce cost, and strive to keep operation budgets low. However, the reasoning behind why they want to achieve this does contrast. Typically profit based organizations strive to increase revenue and market share so that the business can grow. Alternatively, not-for-profit businesses are more interested in increasing their reach within communities whether it is to increase annual donations or invest in the lives of others.

Success or failure of a project can be determined by one or more of these drivers based on the scope of a project and the company’s priorities associated with each of the drivers. In addition, if a project attempts to incorporate multiple drivers and is only partially successful, then the project might still be considered to be a success due to how close the project was to meeting each of the priorities.

Continuous evaluation of the project could lead to a decision to abort a project, because it is expected to fail before completion. Evaluations should be executed after the completion of every software development process stage.

Pfleeger notes that software development process stages include:

• Requirements Analysis and Definition
• System Design
• Program Design
• Program Implementation
• Unit Testing
• Integration Testing
• System Delivery
• Maintenance

Each evaluation at every state should consider all the business drivers included in the scope of a project for how close they are expected to meet expectations. In addition, minimum requirements of acceptance should also be included with the scope of the project and should be reevaluated as the project progresses to ensure that the project makes good economic sense to continue. If the project falls below these benchmarks then the project should be put on hold until it does make more sense or the project should be aborted because it does not meet the business driver requirements.
 

References

• Cost Reduction Program. (n.d.). Dictionary of Accounting Terms. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/cost-reduction-program
• Government Information Exchange. (n.d.). Government Information Exchange Glossary. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from SSA.gov Web site: http://www.ssa.gov/gix/definitions.html
• PayPerClickList.com. (n.d.). Glossary Term R - Pay Per Click List.
• Retrieved July 19, 2009, from PayPerClickList.com Web site: http://www.payperclicklist.com/glossary/termr.html
• Pfleeger, S & Atlee, J.(2009). Software Engineering: Theory and Practice. Boston:Prentice Hall
• Veluchamy, Thiyagarajan. (n.d.). Glossary « Thiyagarajan Veluchamy’s Blog. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Thiyagarajan.WordPress.com Web site: http://thiyagarajan.wordpress.com/glossary/