A better question is, "How do you spend $1 billion on software and succeed?" The fundamental problem isn't the quality of your developers, it's the fact that yo

A better question is, "How do you spend $1 billion on software and succeed?" The fundamental problem isn't the quality of your developers, it's the fact that you have to coordinate multiple environments composed of mutually-irreconcilable workflow and processes, legacy systems never designed to talk to anything, and real-world problems that aren't amenable to solutions at scale. Big Bang projects are almost impossible to get off the launchpad in a single piece, so can we learn from the ones that actually make it to orbit? Or is there an inverse Tolstoy effect here -- every failed project is alike, but every successful project is successful in its own way?