Evaluation of software industry critical success factors with AHP method

In the software industry, which has a very wide market area, every project cannot reach the customer by successfully completing it. According to Standish's "CHAOS" report, as of 2020, although 31% of the software projects are concluded with success, 19% of them are unsuccessful, while in 50% of them, the planned budget and/or delivery time for the project is exceeded. There are many important factors in the success of software projects. These factors, which are defined as Critical Success Factors (CSF), are grouped under 3 main criteria for the software industry: "People-Related Factors", "Process-Related Factors" and "Technical-Related Factors". In this study, it is aimed to measure the thoughts of software engineers in Turkey about the Critical Success Factors under these 3 main criteria. The data obtained from the participants as a result of the comparison study were analyzed with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. As a result of the study, it was observed that, contrary to the literature, software engineers in Turkey evaluated technical factors as important as other factors in project success. At the end of the study, suggestions were made to the literature for future academic studies and also suggestions for the software industry were presented.