The popular narrative about failed software projects blames developers. In the vast majority of cases, the critical mistakes happened before development started — in planning meetings, in scope documents, in architecture decisions made by people who weren't sure what they were choosing between.

Root Cause 1 — The Problem Wasn't Defined Clearly Enough

'We need a platform' is not a problem statement. A clear problem statement answers: who has this problem, what are they trying to do, what's preventing them, and what does success look like? Projects that skip this step fail gradually through accumulated scope changes and a final product that solves several problems loosely rather than one problem well.

Root Cause 2 — Stakeholders Weren't Aligned Before Work Started

Every time a new stakeholder weighs in with a previously unstated requirement, the project changes. Every change mid-build costs three to five times more than including it at the planning stage. A structured requirements workshop before development starts eliminates the most expensive category of mid-project change requests.

Root Cause 3 — The Scope Was Built Around Ambition, Not Evidence

Version one scope documents are almost always too large. You're committing budget to features before you know which ones users actually need. The antidote is ruthless scoping against the core user journey.

Root Cause 4 — The Wrong Architecture Was Chosen for the Wrong Reasons

Architecture decisions are made for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with what the product actually needs. These decisions have long tails. The right architecture starts with product requirements: what does this system need to do, how many users, what are the performance requirements, who needs to maintain it?

Root Cause 5 — Nobody Owned the Product Decision

Software projects need a single person with authority and responsibility to make product decisions. When this ownership is absent, decisions get made by whoever is loudest or most recently in the room. The symptoms: constant reprioritisation, features that keep changing mid-build, development teams waiting for clarifications that never arrive.

Root Cause 6 — Technical Debt Was Treated as a Later Problem

'We'll refactor it after launch' is one of the most expensive sentences in software development. For no-code projects, technical debt takes a specific form: data models not designed for current complexity, automation logic inside Bubble when it should be in n8n, Bubble's native database holding data that should be in Supabase.

Root Cause 7 — Success Was Never Defined

Without a definition of success, you can't evaluate whether the project is on track or whether version one achieved what it was supposed to. Success metrics should be defined at the planning stage: concrete, measurable, tied directly to the original problem.