What all are the indicators by which one can identify if the project is going in wrong direction.

Question

Its a common thing to see that most of the project gets lost in-between the development due to many reasons, some which can be fixed and some which cannot. Can you please share various indicators that would point to this and feel free to share your experience that may help.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

One indicator is when lot of issues start coming up in the team meetings that contradict the SRS. Another indicator is when the TL and the PM start explaining the same requirement differently... which clearly shows that the requirement has either have not been correctly understood or mis-interpretation of it

A good link is here

Answer 2

When unpaid overtime, especially weekend working, becomes Standard Operational Procedure.

Answer 3

One of the tell-tale signs a project is heading in the wrong direction is when the project no longer becomes a project. The definition of a project is:

1. The project has a well defined objective
2. The project has specific start and end time
3. The project has a customer

If any of these are not present or if they change and become no longer a project then things are heading the wrong direction. This happened to me when I was the sole developer on a project. Nobody noticed that we lost our clear objective when one of our assumptions proved to be incorrect. My work shifted from development to maintenance. It was a nightmare.